Migration rule changes are welcome but are only part of the recruitment solution

Our CEO Oonagh Smyth welcomes recent changes to the migration rules but says it is only part of the solution.

Following the end of free movement on 1 January 2021, anyone hired from outside the UK, excluding Irish citizens, would have been subject to a new points-based immigration system

Those new rules effectively meant that people couldn’t come to the UK to take up care worker roles, although they could still arrive to take up some regulated professional roles, or senior care worker roles.

In December last year the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), who advise the Government on migration issues, published an interim recommendation in their annual report to add care workers and home carers to the shortage occupation list, and make them eligible for the Health and Care visa.

Later that month, the Government announced they would accept the MAC’s interim recommendation, including the recommended minimum salary threshold of £20,480.

Our Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) data shows that currently only around 10% of care workers earn a full-time equivalent of more than £20,480 per year.

Why does that change matter?

Two reasons. The first is our sector’s employers employ around 16% non-British workers which includes 7% - or 113,000 jobs - who were nationals of EU countries. So those workers are already an important part of our workforce.

The second is as I said in my last blog on the sector’s vacancy numbers that adult social care already has a recruitment challenge. We need to fill around 105,000 vacancies on any given day and just over a quarter of the workforce was over the age of 55 and likely to retire in the next 10 years. Adding care workers to the shortage occupation list will help employers recruit to fill some of those vacancies.

The reality is that recruiting from the EU and around the world is not the only answer to our long-term recruitment challenges. Based on the projected growth of the population aged 65 and above, the sector may need 490,000 extra jobs by 2035. We can only do that by appealing to people who typically have not been attracted to social care (such as men), dramatically improving terms and conditions, or recruiting from abroad. None of these tactics alone are likely to solve the issue – we will need a combination.

We need to recognise the scale of the challenge so that we can have a brave solution. That’s why we will continue to use the pillars of our strategy as the basis for how we work with employers and other sector partners to find those solutions.

For some employers looking abroad for experienced staff is an option in a very challenging recruitment environment as they try to find people with the right values who we know are much more likely to stay in the sector.

It’s also the case that recruiting from abroad isn’t easy. Health and other sectors have infrastructure to support with international recruitment, but we do not have that in social care and each employer is trying to do it alone. So, we hosted one of our regular online webinars on international recruitment featuring contributions from experts and employers who are already successful recruiting from abroad. The webinar covered tips on how to navigate the immigration system, visa applications, vaccination plus sponsorship and licenses.

So, while welcoming including care workers in the shortage occupation list, we will continue to share our data and intelligence with partners and across the sector because there is still much work we need to do to make sure that social care is an attractive career choice for anyone looking for rewarding work no matter where they come from.

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