Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Out-Law News 2 min. read

UK skilled migrant immigration quota exceeded for third month


The monthly cap on the number of skilled worker visas issued by the UK to workers from outside the EU has been reached for the third month in a row.

Data published by the Home Office showed that successful applicants for Tier 2 (General) restricted Certificates of Sponsorship (RCoS) in February 2018 needed to obtain a minimum of 46 points under the UK's points-based immigration system. Government guidance implies that this means that applicants had to be seeking entry to the UK for a job with a minimum annual salary of £50,000 in order to be successful, unless that job was for a job on the 'shortage occupation' list or for a PhD-level role.

The Home Office has a set quota for skilled worker visas, which is 20,700 per year and which is divided into a monthly allocation. Altogether, 1,707 visas were issued in February, out of both the monthly allocation and a number of 'reclaimed' certificates which were not used within the previous three months.

The cap on skilled worker visas was hit only once before December 2017, in June 2015, according to official figures. The current trend would be "concerning" to employers seeking to recruit outside the UK and EU, although the data provided by the Home Office does not enable employer to accurately predict how the situation would change in future months, according to immigration expert Shuabe Shabudin of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.

"For example, there is no disclosure of total applications received so employers do not know by how much the monthly cap has been exceeded," he said. "This would give an idea of the likely number of re-applications for the following month, which would in turn reduce the number of fresh applications that could be successful."

Notwithstanding that, "the Home Office data has indicated that in the last three months generally only those being paid £50,000 or more could have been sponsored and so it is possible that the cap "could well be hit again in March as a result," he said.

Shabudin also said that the figures could be "another example of the potential impact of Brexit" on recruitment of EU workers. Net EU migration fell to 90,000 in the year to September 2017, the lowest level for five years, according to the latest official immigration statistics; with the decrease driven by a 58,000 drop in the number of EU citizens coming to work in the UK.

"We cannot say for sure whether this is a symptom of employers choosing to, or having to, recruit more key workers from outside the EU as a result of Brexit reducing the number of EU nationals looking to work in the UK, or is an indication that key sectors in the economy are needing more skilled workers from outside the UK and EU," he said.

"However, we continue to urge all employers to undertake an audit of their current workforce to see how it may be affected over the months pre-Brexit, and are working with them to develop strategies to mitigate those effects post-Brexit," he said.

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