Sixfold rise in foreign care workers in UK complaining of exploitation

The pandemic and post-Brexit immigration controls prompted a staffing crisis in Britain’s social care sector that prompted an easing of rules on hiring from abroad. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

The number of foreign social care workers reporting that they are trapped in exploitative contracts has risen sixfold in the last three years, in the latest evidence of widespread abuse of migrants in the British care system.

Data from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) shows that the organisation was contacted 134 times in 2023-24 by care workers reporting that their employers were demanding large sums of money from them to cover “hiring costs”, including visa processing, if they left their jobs. This figure was up from 22 such complaints just three years ago.