How to conduct a Resident Labour Market Test
Part 1 of ‘Your guide to a compliant Resident Labour Market Test’
The Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT) is a key component of the recruitment process for Tier 2 migrant staff and ensuring that each RLMT is correctly conducted should be a top priority.
When looking to recruit an overseas national for a UK role via the Tier 2 (General) immigration route, it is necessary for employers to first prove that an appropriate candidate cannot be found within the resident UK labour market. In most cases this must be done via an RLMT which involves advertising the role in the UK for a set period of time and assessing all candidates equally.
Conducting a compliant RLMT is not as simple as it sounds, however, as employers must retain a myriad of documents and data surrounding the process and be ready to justify to the Home Office not only why the successful candidate was chosen, but also why unsuccessful candidates were not chosen.
A compliant RLMT should contain these basic elements:
- an advertisement period of at least 28 days
- 2 advertisements for the role in question published to an approved recruitment platform (each advert needs to run for a total of 28 days and can either be posted at the same time or one after the other)
- detailed information on the skills and qualifications required for the role, along with information concerning the location, salary and job description
These are only the fundamental requirements of a compliant RLMT, however, and sponsors should be aware of the many strict requirements surrounding the advertisements and the consequent recruitment process.
Smith Stone Walters is a UK immigration practice. If you are looking to hire an overseas national and are unsure how to approach the Resident Labour Market Test, contact us for advice today.
Look out for Part 2 and Part 3 of this guide, where we will look in detail at the requirements of each stage of the RLMT process!
See also ‘Your guide to a compliant Resident Labour Market Test’:
