The United Kingdom will stop recruiting care workers from overseas this year, a move expected to significantly affect countries like Nigeria that have supplied a substantial portion of the UK’s care workforce.
Several countries, including the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the USA, have specific visa programmes that allow Nigerian citizens to work as caregivers in their healthcare systems.
These programmes generally necessitate a job offer, appropriate qualifications, and proof of English language skills, and often provide a route to permanent residency.
The annual salaries for care workers in these nations vary based on the country and experience level, ranging from approximately £14,000 to €64,000.
However, the UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, on Sunday, announced the country will end the programme, stating it forms part of a broader crackdown on migration.
“It is time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad,” she said in a BBC report, adding that care firms will instead be required to hire British nationals or renew the visas of migrant workers already residing in the country.
The Labour-led government is set to unveil a comprehensive immigration reform plan on Monday aimed at reducing net migration, with projections indicating the reforms could cut up to 50,000 lower-skilled and care worker entries over the next year.
The decision follows rising political pressure to curb migration numbers, which peaked at a record 906,000 in June 2023 and remained high at 728,000 last year.
While the full details of the immigration White Paper are yet to be released, Cooper explained that the threshold for skilled work visas will increase to graduate-level qualifications. Temporary shortage visas will also be narrowed, and additional requirements will be introduced for employers to invest in domestic training.
“These measures are part of a fundamental shift in our immigration system. We are setting up plans for a substantial reduction in net migration,” Cooper said. However, she stressed that no numerical targets would be set, arguing they “undermined the credibility” of previous government policies.
The government will also impose stricter standards on universities admitting international students. “We are making some changes, particularly around the standards and the compliance for universities,” Cooper said, citing issues with non-completion and visa overstays.
According to the BBC, the decision to end overseas recruitment for care workers comes after a sharp drop in Health and Care Worker visa applications, from 18,300 in August 2023 to just 1,700 by April 2024. That decline followed the government’s earlier move to bar applicants from bringing dependents and its April 9 rule requiring firms to show evidence they had tried to recruit domestically.
Under the new measures, care providers must now recruit from within the UK, including from a pool of over 10,000 care workers whose sponsorships have been cancelled.
Cooper also pledged to introduce a fair pay agreement for care workers to improve recruitment within the UK, saying the goal is to make the sector more appealing to domestic workers.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, while agreeing with the plan to end overseas care worker recruitment, argued the Labour proposals did not go far enough. “This is too little. We need an annual migration cap,” he said, noting that the Conservative Party would press Parliament to vote on such a cap this week.
Liberal Democrats social care spokesperson Helen Morgan criticised the move, calling it insufficient to resolve ongoing staff shortages. “The government is tinkering around the edges yet failing to properly tackle the crisis in our social care,” she said.
Labour’s announcement has also been linked to political pressure from Reform UK, which gained ground in the recent local elections. Reform leader Nigel Farage claimed the proposed immigration laws were a reaction to his party’s surge in the polls. “This new legislation is only happening because Reform is leading,” he said, warning Labour’s approach would fail because it did not fully address the issue of assimilation.
