Umbrella company contractors may be interested to hear that although the UK government is attempting to clamp down on immigration, the numbers keep rising.
In the first quarter of this year, 666,000 people born in foreign countries were working in the UK. In the comparable quarter of 2002, there were just 298,000. Foreign born workers now fill 20% of all low-skilled jobs compared to 9% in 2002 and the majority of them come from EU countries.
The UK Border Agency now has caps on the number of highly skilled and skilled immigrants who are allowed into the UK every year but it is powerless to act against workers from EU states.
Damian Green, the immigration minister, had said the immigration cap would reduce net migration to the tens of thousands and yet Home Office statistics show net immigration increased to 242,000 in the year leading up to last September.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has said that the immigration cap has done little to reduce the number of people coming to the UK in search of work. The Institute’s public policy adviser, Gerwyn Davies, said he was not surprised at the increase in net migration. The fall in the total number of migrants from outside the EU has been overshadowed by the increase in economic migration from other EU states.
More opportunities opened up for European professionals when the government introduced its temporary cap. The UK has seen a decline of 10% in the number of US citizens employed and a drop of more than 33% in those from Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Davies went on to say that the immigration cap won’t help the UK’s unemployed people and it could have serious consequences for both public and private sector organisations.
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