UK Minimum Salary For Foreign Workers To Increase Under Legal Migration Check

UK Minimum Salary For Foreign Workers To Increase Under Legal Migration Check

The United Kingdom government is expected to hike the minimum salary for foreign workers as part of plans to curb record legal migration levels.

Onyxnewsng reports the minimum salary for a skilled worker visa will rise from the current level of £26,200.

There are also expected to be curbs on visas for healthcare workers, and the number of dependents migrants can bring to the UK.

Further conditions on some student visas are also expected.

Ministers have been facing pressure to act on legal migration, after figures last week showed net migration hit 745,000 last year.

The new measures are expected to be announced in the House of Commons later by Home Secretary James Cleverly.

The new minimum salary has yet to be confirmed, but there have been reports it could rise above £35,000.

There have also been reports the government could overhaul the list of occupations where foreign workers can be hired below standard salary thresholds.

Posts on the shortage occupation list can currently be filled by foreign workers paid 20% less than the official “going rate” that employers would otherwise have to pay, or a lower overall salary cap of £20,960.

Last week, Lee Anderson and Sir Edward Leigh called on Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick for tougher lines on immigration.

The government’s migration advisers have recommended scrapping the 20% rule. Labour has also pledged to stop it, arguing it harms fair pay and training of UK workers.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has promised to reduce migration levels, which have risen since Brexit despite a Tory 2019 election promise to reduce them.

On Monday, his spokesman told reporters that migration was too high, and there had been “abuse” of measures relating to “changes introduced over successive years“.

However, latest statistics show the challenge ministers will face in reducing migration into the health sector, which has come to rely heavily on hiring workers from abroad.

The statistics showed the number of health and care worker visas issued in the year to September stood at 143,990, double the previous year.

In total 83,072 of these visas were issued for care workers and home workers – a sector facing staffing shortages and where providers have resisted curbs on their ability to hire foreign staff.

Previously, the government’s migration advisers had said “persistent underfunding” of local councils, which funds most adult social care, is the most important factor in the staffing difficulty.