One in five employers in the UK has hired a Ukrainian refugee, according to research by the Social Market Foundation.
The think tank polled more than 2,000 HR managers on their hiring practices since post-Brexit changes to the immigration system. Twelve per cent had hired a Hong Kong British national, while the same percentage had hired a refugee. Nineteen per cent had hired Ukrainian workers.
According to the latest official migration statistics, there were more than 154,000 arrivals from Ukraine last year, and 52,000 with British nationals status from Hong Kong. Around 6,000 refugees are resettled in the UK each year.
SMF’s survey fed into its report – The Whole of the Moon: UK labour immigration policy in the round – which makes a number of recommendations to government on how the current system could be improved.
The report advocates “significant simplification” of Britain’s migration system.
The think tank says that work visas should be granted solely on the basis of wage levels, rather than the current system of occupational groups and a minimum qualifying salary.
The SMF also argues that the current system works poorly for certain parts of the UK because it “allows wages to be lowered to fill vacancies, rather than increased to attract applicants”. This puts downward pressure on wages in those areas, it says.
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Jonathan Thomas, senior fellow at the SMF, said: “Allowing wage levels alone to decide who can get a visa would allow businesses in areas of the country experiencing particular labour shortages to be able to access overseas labour provided that they were willing to pay salaries at or above the required salary threshold.”
SMF urged the government to “make proper use” of the Immigration Skills Charge that employers must pay, or to scrap this scheme outright. At present, the UK government raises £350 million a year from this charge.
Thomas added: “Either the charge should be dropped, or its usage clearly publicised, and scrutinised, which would help build public trust that the gains from immigration are being more equitably shared and sensibly reinvested for the benefit of all.”
SMF found that larger employers were more willing to bear the charges levied on them than smaller organisations.
Furthermore, there was still “substantial confusion and uncertainty around shorter-term assignments”, for example if a worker was needed for longer than a business visitor visa but the period did not warrant the cost and administration burden of a longer visa.
It argues that labour shortages should not be managed through targeted immigration policy, even if this seems like the “obvious, sensible and simple” thing to do.
“It is not possible to both accurately assess labour shortages and respond to them rapidly – it takes too long for accurate objective data to emerge,” it says, adding that the Australian immigration system – often cited as an exemplar – is not to be emulated.
The SMF added that the speed of bureaucracy in granting and issuing visas – “the grit in the wheels” – would need to speed up for employers to make the most of the system.
Nadine Goldfoot, managing partner of immigration law firm Fragomen, which sponsored SMF’s research, agreed with the recommendations.
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She said: “We agree with the report’s critical premise: though short-term access to overseas labour is not the only solution to domestic labour shortages, it is nevertheless a very important and constant part of the solution and needs also to be at the heart of long-term policies targeted at developing the domestic pool of labour.”
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