(MENAFN- AzerNews)
Nazrin Abdul
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The number of overseas workers, students, and their families
applying for visas to come to the UK has fallen by a third over the
last 12 months, Azernews reports, citing the
BBC.
The sharp decline follows rule changes, introduced by the
Conservative government, which banned most international students
and health and social care workers from bringing families to the
UK.
Provisional figures from the Home Office suggest the number of
migrants and their family members applying for the visas fell from
around 141,000 in July 2023 to 91,000 last month.
There was a particularly big drop in the numbers applying for
health and care worker visas which dropped by 80% to 2,900.
The Home Office said it would "ensure we train up our homegrown
workforce and address the shortage of skills".
A spokesperson for the department said that immigration brought
"many benefits to the UK, but it must be controlled and delivered
through a fair system".
Nadra Ahmed, executive co-chairman of the National Care
Association said the sector had started to see some staff return
home or move to countries with "a less hostile environment around
immigration".
Speaking to the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, she said: "If we
had a domestic workforce willing to work then we wouldn't need
these international recruits."
She added it would "take a few years" to build up a domestic
workforce and warned that vacancies in the sector could rise to
unsustainable levels.
The reduction in international students applying for visas could
also hurt universities already facing financial pressures.
The new rules that appear to have caused the steep fall in visa
applications were introduced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
in a bid to reduce immigration levels down from record highs.
In 2022, legal net migration soared to 764,000 but fell by 10%
the following year. The Office for National Statistics says it was
"too early to say if this is the start of a downward trend".
In 2021, the immigration rules for care workers had been relaxed
to ease recruitment problems following Brexit.
Two years later, then-Home Secretary James Cleverly announced
that the government would ban care workers from bringing family
dependants to the UK, as part of efforts to reduce net migration
numbers.
That came after a previously announced ban on most overseas
students bringing dependents with them.
The government also increased the minimum salary for skilled
overseas workers wanting to come to the UK from £26,200 to
£38,700.
To qualify as a skilled worker, applicants need to accrue 70
points under the points system introduced in 2020.
Points can be gained in different ways including by having a job
offer in a sector with shortages or holding a PhD.
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