Immigration
skills charge
for UK employers

24 September 2015

The new Immigration Bill includes plans to charge UK businesses for employing skilled foreign workers.

Employers may soon face even higher costs if they are to bring in the talent they need from outside the UK. The new Immigration Bill has been laid down before Parliament and, if passed, would introduce powers for a skills levy applicable to UK organisations employing workers from beyond the EU.

It is not yet clear, however, how much the immigration skills charge would cost sponsors of overseas Tier 2 migrant workers, how it would be administered nor who exactly the charge would apply to.

Whatever the sum, the charge will only serve to further increase the expense surrounding the recruitment and employment of Tier 2 migrant workers in the UK.

Employers are already being forced to pay £200 per sponsored Tier 2 (General) migrant per the number of years for which they are sponsored to be in the UK following the introduction of the Immigration Health Surcharge earlier this year. For a family of five intending to stay for a total of five years this means the extra expense of £5,000 which is payable before any visa application can be considered. This cost comes in addition to normal UK visa application costs.

Yet another surcharge could push some employers to their financial limits.

Further changes to the Tier 2 system

The bill outlines more changes to the Tier 2 system which will come into effect on 12 October this year, including a restructuring of the Tier 2 salary bands in order to alleviate the current restricted Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) crisis.

This change is designed to enable the granting of a greater number of requests in times of over subscription and will be used for the first time in October’s allocation meeting.

The bill also grants the Home Office the power to reclaim and reuse any restricted CoS which has been returned or has not been assigned to a migrant worker within three months of it being issued. This will allow such restricted CoS to be added to the pool of available restricted CoS for allocation the next month.

For more information on how the new Immigration Bill could affect your UK business, please contact Smith Stone Walters for friendly, professional and up to date advice.

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