Cliff Notes – Care homes face ban on overseas recruitment
- The Home Secretary has announced a ban on recruiting overseas care workers to reduce net migration, aiming for a cut of about 50,000 low-skilled worker visas this year.
- The National Care Association and Care England have expressed serious concerns, describing the government’s plans as detrimental to an already struggling sector facing significant staffing shortages.
- Upcoming immigration reforms, detailed in an Immigration White Paper, are expected to tighten visa controls overall, with a focus on increasing higher-skilled migration.
Care homes face ban on overseas recruitment
Care workers will no longer be recruited from abroad under plans to “significantly” bring down net migration, the home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme the government will close the care worker visa route as part of new restrictions which aim to cut the number of low-skilled foreign workers by about 50,000 this year.
She said: “We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, so new visa controls, because we think actually what we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration and we should be concentrating on training in the UK.
“Also, we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment”.
The move comes ahead of the Immigration White Paper to be laid out this week, which will give more details on the government’s reforms.
Care England, a charity which represents independent care services, described Ms Cooper’s comments as a “crushing blow to an already fragile sector” and said the government “is kicking us while we’re already down”.
Its chief executive Martin Green said international recruitment is a “lifeline” and there are “mounting vacancies” in the sector.