Large decline in visa applications for health and care workers

Health and care workers : Over the past 12 months, there has been a 33% decrease in the number of foreign workers, students, and their families requesting visas to enter the UK.

The steep drop is the result of regulations enacted by the Conservative government, which forbade the majority of foreign students as well as health and social care professionals from bringing their families to the UK.
According to Home Office preliminary data, the number of immigrants and their families applying for visas decreased from approximately 141,000 in July 2023 to 91,000 in the most recent month.

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The number of applications for visas for health and care workers fell by 80% to 2,900, which was a particularly large decrease.

“We will ensure we train up our homegrown workforce and address the shortage of skills,” the Home Office declared.
According to a government spokesman, immigration has “many benefits for the UK, but it must be controlled and delivered through a fair system”.
According to Nadra Ahmed, executive co-chairman of the National Care Association, there has been a shift in the sector as some employees are going back to their homes or relocating to nations that have “a less hostile environment around immigration”.
“We wouldn’t need these international recruits if we had a domestic workforce willing to work,” she remarked in an interview with the BBC’s Radio 4 Today program.
She cautioned that job openings in the industry would reach unmanageable heights and noted that it would “take a few years” to develop a domestic workforce.

The decline in foreign applicants for visas may have a negative impact on universities that are already under financial strain.

According to the Migration Observatory, country-specific issues like the economic crisis in Nigeria may have contributed to the fall in applications for student visas.

The former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s new regulations, which aimed to lower immigration from all-time highs, also seem to have contributed to a drop in visa applications.
Legal net migration reached 764,000 in 2022, but the following year it decreased by 10%. “Too early to say if this is the start of a downward trend” is how the Office for National Statistics puts it.
The immigration laws for carers were loosened in 2021 in an effort to alleviate hiring difficulties brought on by Brexit.
In an attempt to lower net migration, the government forbade care providers from bringing family members into the country two years later, according to then-Home Secretary James Cleverly.
That followed the earlier announcement that the majority of international students were not permitted to bring dependents. The number of student dependent visas granted increased significantly from approximately 16,000 in 2019 to 135,000 in 2022.

Additionally, the government raised the minimum wage from £26,200 to £38,700 for skilled foreign workers wishing to relocate to the UK.

According to the 2020 points system, candidates must get 70 points in order to be considered skilled workers.
Points can be earned in a variety of ways, for as by holding a PhD or getting a job offer in an industry where there is a scarcity.
The Home Office’s most current data, according to the research tank Migration Observatory, does not show any “clear impact” from the increased salary level.

Additionally, the previous administration had suggested increasing the salary requirement from £18,600 to £38,700 in order to allow family members to immigrate to the UK.

It lowered the barrier to £29,000 in response to criticism and announced that additional increases would be implemented at a later time.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced last month that the barrier would remain at £29,000 until the Migration Advisory Committee’s study was finished by the new Labour government.
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