legal spotlight 27
Jobs should be advertised says migration advisory committee
The Government commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to conduct a review of the Tier 2 route of the Points Based System (PBS). The overarching brief was to advise on 'significantly reducing the level of economic migration outside the EU', while considering the UK’s economy, competitiveness and productivity writes Imelda Reddington of Herrington Carmichael
The MAC published their report on January 19 with proposed increases to salary thresholds and in the introduction of immigration charges to restrict the use of the Tier 2 General and Tier 2 Intra-company route (ICT) routes.
Tier 2 General
Tier 2 General is a route used for migrant workers with a job offer from a sponsor in the UK. Sponsors must advertise to the national workforce before applying for a Restricted Certificate of Sponsorship (RCoS). There is an annual limit to the number of RCoS’s available of 20,700. RCoS’s are allocated monthly to the highest salaried applicants who applied within that month. Priority is given to occupations with skills shortages. Once the sponsor obtains the RCoS, they can apply for a visa for a worker. If an employer is hiring a migrant working in the UK on an existing visa or a graduate, they can hire them without advertising the role. However, MAC proposes that all roles should be first advertised before being offered to migrant workers.
While MAC also considered reducing the number of occupations available in the Tier 2 General route, they felt that restricting the route to skills shortages and high specialist would be too restrictive and out of date on publication.
Intra-company transfer route
Tier 2 ICT is a route for existing employees of multinational employers who are transferred to the UK branch for training purposes or to fill a specific vacancy that cannot be filled by a UK or European Economic Area (EEA) worker, either on a long or short-term basis.
Unlike Tier 2 General this route does not lead to settlement but there are no restrictions or limits on the numbers that can come in each year. Currently the short-term (ST) and long-term (LT) routes must have at least 12 month's service while the graduate route must have at least three months service with their employer
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MARCH 2016
overseas. MAC proposes to increase the period of service to two years for the ST and LT routes but retain six months for the graduate route.
MAC proposes a new route specifically for third party contractors which will help to identify possible skills shortages in the IT area.
The rationale for setting minimum salary thresholds is to prevent undercutting of UK-based workers by migrants
MAC proposes to introduce the advertising of roles to the national workforce, require more information on the Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) about the skills associated with the role, propose to charge the new Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) (detailed below) and extend the use of Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) which is already in place for most routes to the UK.
The Confederation of British Industry supports the route saying, “.... The use of ICTs has enabled the UK to win substantial investment, and has supported UK businesses to break into new markets”.
Immigration skills charge
The ISC is a new fee to be applied to all employers who sponsor a Tier 2 migrant worker. The aim of the fee is to encourage employers to invest in the resident labour force, rather than recruiting from overseas. The proceeds of the ISC is to fund apprenticeships in the UK.
Salary thresholds
The rationale for setting minimum salary thresholds is to prevent undercutting of UK- based workers by migrants. Migrants should
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not be used by employers as a cheaper source of labour. MAC proposes to increase some of these thresholds.
The Institute of Directors (IOD) director general raised his concerns with the proposed salary increase saying: “The salary thresholds are particularly short-sighted, as they would block valuable employees like engineers, while not catching high- earning bankers or lawyers. It is likely to be the public sector which suffers most, as the thresholds make it harder to recruit much- needed nurses and teachers from abroad.”
The Home Office data from March 2015 shows that nurses and teachers are the most affected by salary within Tier 2 migrants. There are no specific proposals to exclude public-sector workers from the minimum salary threshold.
Conclusion
The focus for the MAC has been to increase the fees associated with employing migrant workers. However for some sponsors particularly in the IT sector, the fees will be passed directly to clients. Will clients question the increase in costs or perhaps look to the national workforce?
Details: Imelda Reddington 0118-9774045
Imelda.Reddington@
herrington-carmichael.com
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