UK govt mulls curbs on visas for techies to bring down migration, ET TravelWorld

Britain’s govt is considering tightening visa rules for hiring foreign IT, telecom and engineering professionals to fill jobs in the UK as it tries to bring down high levels of migration. Thousands of Indian IT and engineering professionals travel to work in these sectors in Britain every year, filling crucial gaps in the labour market. Changes could include raising the minimum salary threshold in these sectors or restrictions based on different regions of Britain.

UK home secretary Yvette Cooper has written to Brian Bell, chair of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), asking him to review the reasons behind the reliance on international recruitment in the sectors of “IT and telecommunications professionals and engineering professionals”.

“These sectors feature in the top 10 of those sectors which have been reliant on international recruitment and the govt would like MAC to set out the reasons behind this. The high levels of international recruitment reflect weaknesses in the labour market, including persistent skills shortages in the UK,” she wrote.

Visa-on-Arrival facility available for nationals of Japan, South Korea, UAE

The Visa-on-Arrival facility for Japan, South Korea, and UAE nationals has been announced, allowing a stay of up to 60 days. This initiative, along with expanded e-Visa access to nationals of 167 countries, aims to simplify travel to India. Tourist safety measures and infrastructure development schemes such as Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD were also highlighted.

She asked MAC to find out what is driving the labour shortage and “how have the sectors sought to respond to these shortages, beyond seeking to recruit from overseas from overseas?” “What policy levers within the immigration system could be used to incentivise sectors to focus on recruiting from the domestic workforce,” she said, telling him the system is “not operating in the national interest”.The MAC report is expected in nine months. Ganapati Bhat, an IT consultant from Bengaluru who has worked in the UK since 2007 after arriving on the highly skilled migrant programme, told TOI: “There is no need to change the policy around this just because there is noise around immigration. We can hardly fulfil the vacancies in Britain as salaries for some of these jobs are not that great compared to India and the US when you take into account the cost of living.”