Are overseas workers the answer?

By JO THORNHILL
Updated:

 

If you have unfillable gaps in your workforce thanks to a skills shortage, the answer may lie in foreign lands. Changes to the Department for Employment and Education's work permit scheme mean a relaxing of the visa requirements for employing non-Europeans in the UK.

The lack of skilled workers is having a huge impact on small and medium sized businesses across Britain, particularly in the technology industries.

Many companies will welcome the DfEE's proposed changes - but Andrew Parkinson, press officer at the British Chamber of Commerce, points out that this is only a short-term solution to a very big problem.

He says: 'Recruiting from abroad is fine and is extremely beneficial to businesses, but it doesn't tackle the root of the skills shortage problem in this country. It is clearly necessary to deal with the problem in the present, but long-term businesses need to attack the main causes of the skills crisis.'

He suggests that stronger ties between education and employment and better liasing between business and schools is the best way to beat the problem: 'We need to get the basics right and build on that - this means engaging and involving employers throughout the education of a child.'

The DfEE's changes include:

• Jobs within the technology, communications and electronics categories have been expanded, while lists of different skills shortages in other technologies have been set out.

• In-country switching from a separate immigration category into work permit employment will be permitted in defined circumstances.

• Labour market tests for extensions and transfers of work permits are to be removed.

• The maximum period for work permits will be raised from four to five years, with season tickets introduced for workers who enter for short periods on a regular basis.

• Supplementary work will not require a permit. The department has also proposed changes to training and work experience schemes to make it easier for students to get permission to work on completion of a course.

While some of the proposals will be implemented quickly, others require consultation with various Government departments and could take longer to be brought into effect.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone will deliver a speech on tackling the skills shortage in UK business, at the London Chamber of Commerce's Skills and Employment Forum on 15 March.

It is expected that the Forum's chairman, Iain Herbertson, managing director of Manpower, will use the opportunity to launch a campaign to improve links between education and business by encouraging more people from business to become school governors.

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