Recruit overseas ‘or face social care sector crisis’
‘Extraordinary shortages’
MINISTERS should make it easier for employers to recruit senior care workers, butchers and bricklayers from abroad due to ‘extraordinary’ shortages in the labour market, Government advisers have urged.
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) made the recommendation amid concern the care sector in particular will face a staffing crisis from January 1, when EU free movement ends.
But chairman Professor Brian Bell also said migrants are not the solution to the care sector’s shortages and urged employers to increase wages to attract more applicants from inside the UK.
Professor Bell, from King’s College London, published a list of more than 50 occupations which are facing shortages, including artists, archaeologists, ballet dancers and welders.
If Home Secretary Priti Patel follows his advice and adds the jobs to the official shortage occupation list, minimum salary conditions will be waived for foreign applicants seeking a visa.
Professor Bell said: ‘We remain particularly concerned about the social care sector – which is so central to the frontline response to this health pandemic – as it will struggle to recruit the necessary staff if wages do not increase as a matter of urgency.
‘The MAC has argued for some years now that funding social care to a level that enables high wages to be paid, and consequently makes jobs more attractive to resident workers, is the right way to address the workforce issues in the sector rather than relying on migrant workers to fill the gaps.
‘However, the risks of this funding increase not happening in a timely manner are stark.’
He said the end of free movement would ‘increase the pressure on the social care sector’.
And on the shortage of butchers, bricklayers and welders, Professor Bell said: ‘It does seem extraordinary.’ He argued that governments have not ‘done a very good job of linking where we see shortages with a training and education programme that actually thinks about addressing these shortages’.
Adult social care already has more than 100,000 vacancies nationally, according to industry estimates. The MAC’s report recommended senior care workers should be allowed to earn as little as £20,480 a year to qualify for a visa, more than £5,000 below the normal minimum for an overseas applicant.
But adding senior care workers to the list would not entirely solve the sector’s recruitment woes, said Professor Bell.
This is because lower categories of care staff, who make up of most of the industry, are not considered skilled workers so they face immigration measures.
The MAC also suggested adding a number of construction roles and further categories of nurses to the shortage list along with jobs in the creative and arts industries.
The committee said artists, skilled dancers, producers and directors should be made shortage occupations to make it easier for job hunters from abroad to come to the UK.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘We have only just received the report so we will be looking at the recommendations closely and responding in due course.’
And a Government spokesman said that they are helping the social care sector ‘in a number of ways, including £1.5billion more funding for adults and children’s social care in 2020-21 and a national recruitment scheme’.