Calls for a “quick fix” to new visa routes to fill UK labour shortages with foreign workers have been rebuffed by government migration advisors.
The move is a snub for business leaders demanding a relaxation of immigration controls.
The Home Office’s Migration Advisory Committee said ministers should “should resist calls to open new visa routes without a strong economic rationale” and should instead work with employers to attract domestic staff with better pay and conditions.
The committee said greater automation should also be encouraged as well as efforts to encourage the increased number of inactive workers back into jobs.
Recommendations on Tuesday, delivered in the committee’s annual report to Parliament, will disappoint business groups such as the Confederation of British Industry which have been calling for more overseas workers to plug labour shortages in sectors including agriculture, hospitality and others.
But the committee said that opening new visa routes in response to such demands would would effectively reverse the end of freedom of movement of EU workers on a “sectoral basis” and remove the incentive for longer term solutions.
Professor Brian Bell, the committee’s chairman, said that with the UK facing a recession, rising numbers of inactive workers, and a large number of vacancies “it would be all too tempting to imagine that a quick fix can be achieved simply by easing some of the restrictions on the immigration work routes.”
“But such changes are rarely temporary and would lessen the incentives on employers to adjust pay and working conditions to attract workers out of unemployment and inactivity.”
Criticising the failure of the government and the private sector to work together on longer term solutions, Prof Bell added: “The government needs to proactively manage and address shortages through the implementation of an effective strategy and joined up thinking across Government and the private sector.
“There has long been talk of a high wage, high skill economy but at present we see little indication of this being put into effect through existing Government policy.”
Other recommendations in the report include increased funding for tackling labour market exploitation and the introduction of higher minimum pay rate for care workers to boost recruitment with the committee saying it is “bewildered” by the government’s lack of urgency in addressing this problem.
The Migration Advisory Committee, which is comprised of independent economists and other experts, was set up by the Home Office to produce recommendations on migration and the labour market. Ministers are not bound by its conclusions.
