New restrictions for immigrants to UK with drop in skilled categories

Immigration to UK for non-EU workers, is going to get tougher, with a proposal by the Migration Authority Committee (MAC) advising the British Government to cut the number of skilled job categories.

The Migration Committee recommended on Monday that the number of occupations, eligible for migration under Tier 2 of the Point-Based System (PBS) should be brought down to 121 from 192.

The Daily Mail reports that if the recommendations for removing 71 skilled occupation categories, are passed by the government, the number of visas issued to non-EU workers would drop by 10,000.

This reduction would mean that Tier 2 applicants would be eligible to apply only for the 39 per cent of the jobs in the labor market, down from the current 56 per cent of the skilled jobs.

Occupations that could be removed from the lists include air traffic controllers, beauty salon managers, hairdressers, retail managers, laboratory technicians and estate agents.

However, civil engineers, nurses, midwives, environmental protection officers, finance and investment analysts, management accountants, dancers, entertainers and teaching professionals are among the professionals who still qualify for the Tier 2 visa.

The British Government had raised the threshold to ‘graduate level’ for Tier 2 Visas. It had commissioned the Migration Committee to review which skilled occupations should qualify for the same.

Professor David Metcalf, Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee commented on the report: “Skilled foreign workers make a valuable contribution to the British economy but, in the context of limits on migration, it is essential that the immigration system is designed to select those migrants we need the most. We have recognized this by ensuring our recommendations will allow the most skilled to continue to come and work here.”

The Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition government, is taking steps to decrease the number of immigrants in Britain from hundreds of thousands to ten thousands by 2015. In November 2010, the government had already announced a cap on immigration visas from April 2011 for non-EU workers.