Care homes claim they need more UK visa holders
March 31 2010 by Liam Clifford
The UK’s care industry is under threat as a result of the forthcoming changes in UK visa laws.
Thousands of residential care homes rely on migrant workers, but many
are at risk of not having their UK visas renewed when they expire because of
recent changes to the points-based system that will not permit non-senior care
workers to enter the country from outside the EU. In order to renew visas for
senior migrant care workers they must now be paid more than £7.02 an hour, which
most care homes cannot afford.
In 2007 a third of all carers working in
the UK were citizens of other countries. In London, the figure is much higher:
an estimated 60% of London care workers are non-EU migrants.
The demand
for care workers is set to increase. By 2025, over a million extra workers will
be needed to support the UK’s ageing population.
Experts have warned that
tightening the rules for legitimate UK work visas will only result in a
“trafficking scenario”. The Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at
the University of Oxford, estimates that as many as one in five migrant care
workers is paid less than the minimum wage. Bridget Anderson, senior researcher
at COMPAS, said: “There’s no pressure on the Government to put any more money
into social care. In fact, it’s going to become more squeezed, so it’s going to
end up with migrants in it, either through legal or illegal processes.”
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