News: Telephone and Writing Skills
Employment changes could discourage skilled migrant workers
27 November 2007
Changes announced by the government could discourage skilled migrant workers from coming to the UK, and may mean companies need to engage in more in-house telephone and writing skills training, rather than employing trained foreigners.
The Home Office has unveiled a new approach that will require employers to sponsor immigrants for visa applications, meaning that they will need to apply for a licence to employ those from outside the European Economic Area.
As well as this, organisations will lose their licence if they are found to be unsuitable as a sponsor, in which case the migrant worker would have to leave the UK forthwith.
"Under the new scheme, if a sponsorship licence is revoked or suspended as part of a dispute, or for other reasons, it will prevent any new staff being allowed into the UK and those in the UK must stop work," Liam Clifford of immigration consultancy Global Visas told Personnel Today.
More severe punishments for those firms employing illegal workers is also likely to mean that fewer companies will employ foreign workers.
