The UK is currently facing some major issues with net migration. Migrants are moving to the UK and never leaving, creating a significant shortage of resources.
In an earlier article, ‘UK Immigration Crackdown’, we discussed David Cameron’s plan to crack down on illegal workers, handing the labour market back to UK locals.
Since then, David Cameron has decided upon a new strategy, which involves implementing a pay threshold. Under the new approach, non-European workers earning less than £35,000 or $AU71,525 will be forced to leave the UK after a six year stay.
This new move has caused uproar for the Royal College of Nursing. According to them, huge sums of money (Closely $AU82 million) that was previously spent on recruitment will now be wasted, as a significant portion of the nation’s nurses are now forces to leave the country. The majority of UK nurses are on salaries between $AU42,000 and $57,000. By 2017, more than 3,300 foreign nurses are expected to be affected.
There are currently only 400,000 nurses working in the NHS and the UK is facing a massive shortage of workers in care-related services.
The long term goal is to enhance UK training programs, to train more UK citizens to become nurses, reducing the demand for migrant labour. The issue lies in the short term, as health industry will struggle to fill the gap in the interim between the loss of foreign workers and the influx of newly-trained UK nurses.
A spokesperson for the Home Office has defended the new move, stating that occupations that are suffering from a skill shortage will be subject to exemption under the program. However, nurses are currently not included on the exemption list. The spokesperson has said that nursing will be added to the list if sufficient evidence is provided. However, David Cameron does not foresee the new immigration rules creating a shortage.
Visa Solutions will keep you updated on this situation as it develops.
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