“The Government is committed to bringing down high levels of migration,” the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote in a letter to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) last week as she launched a review of visa use in technology and engineering sectors.
“Current high levels of international recruitment,” she said, “reflect weaknesses in the labour market, including persistent skills shortages in the UK.”
There’s no doubting that latter part of the Minister’s assertion: a BusinessLDN survey carried out by Survation of 1,200 London business leaders and HR managers earlier this year found that eight in 10 had job vacancies and half werestruggling to fill roles.
The new Government certainly hasn’t wasted any time in establishing skills shortages and migration as a key focus. Last month, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer set out proposals to launch Skills England – a new body which will work with industry, providers and the MAC to develop a joined-up approach to addressing skills gaps.
This kind of joined-up thinking is exactly what we need.But, in couching the announcement in talk of “reducing reliance on workers from overseas”, the Government risks following a misguided notion that either we upskill domestic workers or we embrace talent from overseas. In fact, weneed both to drive our economy forward.
International workers not only bring fresh perspectives and new ways of working to businesses, they also create them. Analysis from the Entrepreneurs Network published last summer found that 39% of the UK’s 100 fastest-growing companies had overseas-born founders or co-founders.
At the same time, international students make a vital contribution to our £130bn higher education sector, talent pipeline and soft power, as many go on to be leaders in their home nations.
New figures, which emerged just days after the Home Secretary’s correspondence, show that international applications for UK skilled worker, health, care and study visas fell by a third in July.
This drop-off stems from new restrictions imposed by the last Government. As it ramped up its rhetoric and introduced new rules, so London’s international appeal as a place to live, work and learn was undercut.
The competitive element is important in this context: if we don’t attract internationally mobile talent as the world ofwork rapidly evolves, other global cities will.
Employers are keen to train and recruit more domestic workers, but this shift cannot happen overnight. The Government’s commitment to a joined-up, evidence-based approach to filling skills gaps must, therefore,embrace the whole picture.
That was the approach we took when developing the London Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP), through which we built partnerships between businesses and educators to identify ways to better match training provisionwith what the capital’s employers are demanding.
Recommendations stemming from the plan include launching a new one-stop-shop to support job-seekers, creating a Grow London Local business support skills hub, which has now been established, and steps to boost digital and green skills across the capital.
The Government should now recommit to the LSIP model and deliver on its promise to bring together the National Careers Service, Job Centres and training provision.
It must also address national policies which are standing in the way of new opportunities, not least the apprenticeship levy. The levy was designed to increase employer investment in training, but its clunky delivery has meant burdensome processes for firms, leading to a drop in apprenticeship starts.
Ministers have announced plans for a new growth and skills levy, which many employers will welcome, and we now need a roadmap for changes.
This time next week, thousands of A-Level students across the capital will be collecting their exam results. Whichever steps they take next, they’ll ultimately enter an ever-changing world of work, one in which they’ll be seeking continuous opportunities to upskill and the chance to learn from international colleagues. The Government’s joined-up approach must, then, acknowledge the value of both domestic and global talent.
So often in life, as in exams, the answer to the big questions isn’t either/ or, it’s both.
Mark Hilton is Policy Delivery Director at BusinessLDN