Election results 2024: What changes can employers expect?

How can Labour achieve its policy aims?

As well as its proposals on immigration policy, Labour has committed to sound money and economic stability.

The UK immigration restrictions, introduced in April 2024, have made the UK a less attractive option for highly skilled migrants and competitive employers, mainly due to the immigration fees in the UK making it one of the most expensive UK immigration systems in the world, and the high salary thresholds which disproportionately impact skilled and graduate jobs outside of London.

To address this, Labour could consider the following proposal aims to make the UK truly attractive to the “best and brightest”, while investing heavily in upskilling UK workers:

• Review and reduce immigration costs. In particular, the Immigration Skills Charge is currently not ring fenced for its stated purpose and UK visa application fees are comparatively high. Labour could review and reduce inefficient UK immigration costs to make the overall system cheaper to use for employers and migrants, and ensure any levy on sponsorship is ring fenced for upskilling resident workers.
• There is a large scope for further Youth Mobility scheme expansions or bilateral agreements, especially among European Union countries. These schemes are temporary in nature and therefore do not contribute to net migration numbers, but do facilitate access to labour in otherwise shortage areas. Labour could therefore expand the scope of existing Youth Mobility Schemes and / or negotiate new schemes with other countries.
• Currently, the UK does not have an unsponsored UK visa type which is attractive to entrepreneurs. Visa categories such as the Innovator Founder and Scale up visa introduced for this purpose have been comparatively very unpopular with third-party endorsement bodies remaining unpopular with many business leaders who prefer to retain control over their own companies. Labour could consider introducing a genuinely entrepreneur-friendly visa category which allows businesses to set up in the UK in critical areas and creating more jobs for resident workers.