Migrant Salaries – What’s The Impact?

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The government has announced major increase to migrant salary thresholds – and we have a comment and explanation of the impact from global immigration legal advisers Fragomen.

The salary needed to qualify for a skilled worker visa has gone up to £38,700. This represents an increase of almost 50% from the current salary threshold of £26,000.

The Migration Observatory says the main impact of the increases will actually fall on middle-skilled jobs (where workers tend to currently earn salaries around £26,000). Small businesses and businesses outside of London and the South-East tend to pay slightly less and thus are likely to be more affected by the new threshold. The impact on these jobs may depend on details yet to be released. Similarly, there has been no announcement of whether there will be ‘protected trades’ such as in the construction sector where there is a higher than average skills shortage.

 

Fragomen

Louise Haycock, a partner at Fragomen comments: “Given there has been very limited rises to the salary threshold to sponsor migrant workers since Brexit, it was inevitable that these figures would be closely examined, especially given the higher-than-expected net migration figures published last month.

 “However, the level of the rise in salary threshold is quite staggering and raises concerns that the government’s attempts to lower net migration figures are taking precedence to an economic need.

 “Sectors that relied on the EU workforce to thrive have not yet had sufficient time to see the benefits of grassroots level training and have relied on sponsoring workers in typically lower-paying roles, while also paying the very high associated government fees.

 “The foreseen impact is that from Spring 2024, employers will also need to increase wages which may simply prove unaffordable, exacerbate existing shortages already and undermine the progress being made to curb inflation.”

 

Too far?

Charlotte Wills, also a partner at Fragomen, adds: “The UK immigration system is quick and objective. The question is, with the new increases to salary thresholds and other measures, combined with yet more rises to soon to be introduced fees, has the government gone too far in prioritising politics over economics and risks undoing the good work so far done by the immigration system?

“The 47.7% increase of the salary threshold for sponsored workers is truly staggering and raises concerns for those sectors that have relied on migrant workers post-Brexit to fill labour shortages whilst implementing training programmes to solve the problem on a longer-term basis.”

 

Picture: It is likely to become more expensive to employ migrant workers.

www.fragomen.com/offices/london.html

Article written by Cathryn Ellis
08th December 2023

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