Visas for overseas workers, like bricklayers and carpenters, will be made more readily available, following an update to the government’s shortage occupation list.
The list shines a light on occupations that UK employers have been struggling to fill, providing additional opportunities to recruit from overseas.
Following Brexit, a number of sectors have been operating at limited capacity, as positions traditionally filled by EU workers remain unfilled.
Addressing Recruitment Challenges for UK Employers
The shortage occupation list provides foreign professionals – with specific skills – a streamlined pathway to gaining work visas for employment in the UK.
In assessing the type of professionals to qualify for special dispensation, government advisors participating within the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) analysed 26 job functions within hospitality and construction.
Of these 26 occupations, only five were recommended for inclusion within the shortage occupation list.
The five job types approved by the committee include:
- Construction and building tradespeople
- Bricklayers and masons
- Carpenters and joiners
- Roofers, tilers and slaters
- Plasterers
According to Business Matters, from “From November 2022 to January 2023, compared with the period before the pandemic from January to March 2020, vacancies are 72% higher in hospitality and 65% higher in construction.
“This compares to an increase of 42% in the overall economy.”
Despite these figures, the committee decided not to recommend any hospitality occupations for the list.
The committee justified this decision by remarking that “the government was clear that such a recommendation should be exceptional and based on particularly strong evidence”.
Highlighting potential shortcomings of the evaluation process, the committee continued, saying: “Perhaps inevitably, given the shortened time frame that stakeholders had to respond to us, we do not consider any of the evidence submitted sufficiently strong to justify a recommendation”.
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