An 'army' of Indian workers ready to ease UK labour shortages

An ‘army’ of Indian workers is ready to help ease the UK’s acute labour shortages, if the PM manages to flesh out a free trade deal with India. Visa and immigration advisers are preparing for a massive influx of inquiries ahead of a deal, which could be in place as soon as November.

Boris Johnson met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss a deal
last week. Any concessions agreed on immigration will give the UK ‘a golden
opportunity’ to patch up its labour shortage and enter a new era of
immigration, post-Brexit, according to experts.

Mr Johnson is keen to secure a beneficial trade deal with India and with a
liberalised points-based immigration system now in place, the prime
the minister could issue a visa offer to India to make it easier for workers
from India to come and work in the UK.

Immigration expert Yash Dubal, Director of A Y & J Solicitors, said:
“Britain is facing an unprecedented shortage of labour. Businesses in all
sectors are struggling to fill vacancies meanwhile in India there is an
army of willing workers prepared to come to the UK, work, pay taxes and
contribute to society. We have no shortage of inquiries from clients hoping
to attain work visas for the UK.

“Despite some political reticence from the UK to link a trade deal to
immigration, it would be a golden opportunity to ease the country’s labour
woes. Given how desperate the situation is in many industries, we should be
inviting in as many workers as needed. Rather than debate numbers and
conditions, Boris should be rolling out the welcome mat.”

While Mr Johnson admitted that the UK is short of workers “to the hundreds
of thousands in our economy” and said he has “always been in favour of
having people coming to this country”, he also maintained that any new
immigration deal with India would have to be “controlled” and that it would
focus only on skilled workers, in fields such as IT.

Official figures from the Office of National Statistics show that more than
1.3million job posts were unfilled over the winter, as wages have fallen in
real terms and older people have left the workforce. These record levels of
job vacancies have been described by Suren Thiru at the British Chambers of
Commerce as a sign of “chronic imbalance in the UK labour market”.

Despite Mr Johnson’s insistence that the new immigration regime should be
focussed solely on highly skilled workers, the salary cap for immigrant
workers has been lowered by the government by 30%, from £35,800 to £25,600.
Meanwhile, the skills threshold for foreign nationals has been lowered from
degree to A-levels, or their foreign equivalent, and the resident labour
market test has been abolished.

Many UK’s job vacancies are in hospitality, where there is an extreme
shortage of staff, due to a 700% rise in vacancies in the industry. Hotels
and restaurants are reported to have been offering salaries of up to
£85,000, with £5,000 sign-on bonuses to chefs from India in recent days,
thanks to the lowering of restrictions for skilled worker visas.

Mr Dubal continues: “There are several new visa routes being introduced
this year designed to attract workers from the tech and fintech sectors,
but a failure to address the acute shortages in the lower skilled sectors
of the British economy is short sighted. Any deal with India should make
sure all levels of workers can have access to the UK.”

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