UK Firms Reliant on Cheap Foreign Labour

A think tank has provided further evidence of the problems facing Britain’s “broken” immigration system. Less than one third of documented foreign employees earn the minimum needed to make a net contribution to the economy, instead of relying in whole or in part on public funds.

In 2023, workers needed to earn more than £38,000 (€44,980) to become independent of state benefits and start paying back into the system. Using Freedom of Information requests, the Centre for Migration Control, analysed the salaries of migrants issued with Certificates of Sponsorships (CoSs, the necessary documentation for hiring staff from overseas). While 308,510 CoSs were issued last year, only 90,460 of those holding them earned a sufficient wage to be classified as making a contribution.

This means that more than 70% of migrants who arrived last year are not earning enough money to make a “positive economic contribution” to the UK. Research Director Robert Bates said: “These figures confirm that the UK’s current immigration system is a huge economic burden.”

Health and social care visas are a specific problem, acting as a virtual funnel to bring workers from Africa and South Asia into Britain and onto low-paid work and benefits. As with many student visas, the new arrivals often bring economically inactive family members with them.

The main beneficiaries of these arrangements are businesses, which can make up for training and investment shortfalls with cheap labour.

At an immigration debate last March, Professor Matt Goodwin made a similar observation

If you look at the two million or so people who migrated into Britain over the last few years, what percentage do you think came to work in high-skill jobs? The answer is 15%. Just 15% …. to keep this incredibly weak Deliveroo economy ticking over.

In other words, just half of the CoSs-holders classified as making a “positive economic contribution” are in highly skilled employment. Goodwin slammed “the pro-immigration beliefs of the Luxury Belief Class”—to whom people with a different view are “racists, xenophobes, and far right extremists”—for pretending the new arrivals are mostly doctors, dentists and engineers.

Goodwin also takes a tough line on UK higher education—typically the scores of newer universities—for its reliance upon and subordination to overseas students, calling it

a ponzi scheme, another example of how mass immigration is used to avoid dealing with the longer-term and much deeper problems facing our country.

Mass immigration is not some narrow preoccupation of think tanks and a handful of academics. The wider British public has grown accustomed to having its concerns dismissed by condescending politicians.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is now asking the Migration Advisory Committee to look at the engineering and information technology sectors, where visas can be granted with a more relaxed approach to minimum migrant earnings. She claims Labour will support increasing the salary threshold for Skilled Worker Visas to £38,700 (€45,815).