Global Mobility Dispatches with Ray Rackham
Date: 16 October
The UK’s latest immigration figures tell a striking story. Skilled Worker visa applications fell 43%, Health and Care Worker applications fell 63%. Yet Britain continues to expand opportunities for international researchers and innovators through its Global Talent route.
Last year, in an interview with LegalBridge, I described this approach to immigration policy as the “walls and windows” conundrum.
And the UK is far from alone. Australia, Canada and Singapore (to name three) are tightening certain temporary visa pathways while offering dedicated other pathways for other talent. Different countries, with different economic realities; what unites them is a remarkably similar economic immigration calculation: build a wall against some forms of migration, whilst opening a window for those considered economically desirable.
Governments must manage immigration, protect domestic labour markets and compete for expertise that drives economic growth. But, are we confusing the talent we want with the talent we need? A scientist developing tomorrow’s medicine is welcomed as an investment, a worker helping administer today’s medicine may face a considerably higher barrier.
Immigration systems increasingly use salary, qualifications and exceptional achievement as proxies for economic value. But, economic necessity doesn’t work solely on the basis of perceived personal value. Opening a window for one category of worker does nothing to resolve a shortage created by closing the door to another.
This is where Global Mobility has a responsibility to do more than interpret regulations. We possess valuable intelligence about the challenges, shortages and consequences of immigration restrictions. We inhabit the space between policy and economic reality.
We must bring that evidence into the debate before governments make decisions, not simply help employers navigate the consequences afterwards. Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of sitting next to an individual who has a list as long as his arm of government consultations, reviews and calls for evidence to which he is actively contributing. He reminded me that labour-market need is often sectoral before it is national. Broad migration targets can obscure acute shortages in essential industries.
We can help measure the consequences of restriction in some areas as rigorously as utilising the benefits of the easing migratory policy in others.
Our conundrum is becoming a defining feature of international immigration policy. The danger isn’t that governments are building walls or opening windows; it’s that they may be building and opening them in the wrong places.
