Cap hampers hire of skilled non-EU engineers
1 min read
On the day that the Home Office quarterly immigration statistics for the fourth quarter of 2010 are released, a new study on skills, migration and off-shoring shows that demand for migrant workers has increased despite rising levels of unemployment, with more than a fifth of employers planning to recruit migrant workers in the first quarter of 2011.
However, one in six (17%) UK employers have been prevented from recruiting non-EU migrant workers due to the temporary cap on non-EU workers that is due to end in April 2011 and be replaced with a permanent cap.
In the latest Labour Market Outlook report from CIPD/KPMG, almost two thirds (63%) of UK employers report that non-EU workers have allowed them to increase productivity. More than four in ten (43%) of the 759 employers surveyed report that they are struggling to fill vacancies from within the UK/EU, with 23% saying they are recruiting non-EU migrant workers for engineering vacancies.
Gerwyn Davies, CIPD public policy adviser and author of the report, said: "We should not forget that the UK still has skills shortages in many key areas, nor should we forget that the number of non-EU workers amounts to the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands. So while it is right to highlight our concern about rising unemployment, we should not overlook the benefits and invaluable expertise and experience that a relatively small number of non-EU workers bring to the UK economy. Keeping out skilled non-EU workers won't help unemployed people in the UK in the near term, but could have real and negative consequences for business and the public sector".
