According to new research from Startups.co.uk, on 1st February 2023, UK searches for ‘skilled worker visas’ – the sort of visa necessary for firms to hire non-UK resident employees – reached an all-time high, only three years after Brexit was implemented.
As per Google Trends, the term ‘skilled worker visa’ has reached a score of 100 for the first time. This represents a 156% increase from January 2022, and it comes as 78% of UK businesses cited skills shortages and hiring challenges at the end of last year.
HR Technology News: Kepner-Tregoe Announces New Digital Transformation Practice
As the government reduces expenditure to ‘level up’ Britain in order to create more employment and stimulate the economy, British firms have turned to foreign sources to cover the growing skills gap. This is mostly due to Brexit, which is expected to have resulted in a 330,000-person deficit, as well as the ‘Great Resignation’ (an ongoing trend of mass staff resignations), which has impacted an estimated 85% of UK firms.
Additional variables include older individuals leaving their employment early, which has increased by 1.3% in the last year, and more young people going to university rather than working, which will increase from 43.1% to 44.4% in 2020/21. Furthermore, fast technology innovation following COVID has expanded the gap between digital occupations offered and actual labor availability.
Startups.co.uk senior writer and researcher Helena Young commented: “The skills gap poses a real threat to growth for today’s SMEs. The resulting hiring crisis has created major staffing issues for firms at a time when they are already being heckled by rising energy costs, shrinking consumer spending, and insufficient government aid. Now, the Google Trends data suggests businesses are progressively taking matters into their own hands in an attempt to avoid the detrimental effects of making the wrong hire.”
HR Technology News: MIT xPRO Launches Programs with Simplilearn in Executive Leadership Principles and Machine Learning
The Skilled Worker Visa is the most convenient approach for a company to sponsor a new foreign employee for long-term employment. Any applicant who meets the conditions for the UK’s points-based immigration system can work in the UK with this visa. They can stay for up to five years before seeking permanent residency. Employers who apply for a sponsor license must pay a £364 upfront charge for the first 12 months, plus £182 for each successive six months.
Helena Young continues that there are other ways to help plug the skills gap: “While the global talent pool is certainly a lucrative source to tap into, the above fees show it is expensive to sponsor a foreign worker.” “Investing in their existing workforce will help companies reduce labor costs by avoiding recruitment and onboarding fees. A few suggestions include:
- Digital upskilling – This can be a more affordable talent-finding method than hiring from abroad. It involves investing in learning and development programs to help employees ramp up their expertise.
- Apprenticeship schemes – Whilst more of a long-term solution, apprenticeship schemes are a cost-efficient way to invest in the future of the business, and would stop hiring managers from needing to look far away from home for their newest recruit.
- Outsourcing to freelancers – If you’re hiring for specialist tech roles like software engineers, another option is to tap into the global freelancer network to hire short-term project team members who can work from abroad, avoiding the need for expensive visas.
- Modify your recruitment to target over the 50s – with 3.6 million people aged between 50 and 64 currently being “economically inactive” in the UK, hiring over 50s is an easy way to increase the number of high-caliber applicants for available roles.”
“With recent research stating that 74% of UK firms don’t feel ready for the future and 1 in 5 cited the skills gap as their biggest blocker to progress in 2023, it’s clear that the government must do more to support UK small businesses,” Helena concluded.
HR Technology News: Tech Hiring using AI-powered Talent Platform
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]