Blow to Kenyans as UK ends recruitment of social care workers
The United Kingdom (UK) has announced the closure of its overseas recruitment route for social care workers.
The United Kingdom (UK) has announced the closure of its overseas recruitment route for social care workers.
In a statement on Monday, May 12, the UK government said the decision is aimed at overhauling the adult social care sector.
“We will end overseas recruitment for social care visas. In line with our wider reforms to skills thresholds, we will close social care visas to new applications from abroad.
“For a transition period until 2028, we will permit visa extensions and in-country switching for those already in the country with working rights, but this will be kept under review,” the statement read.
According to the UK, the decision is also motivated by widespread concerns over worker exploitation under the current visa system.
“We have been clear about our concerns about the Adult Social Care visa. The introduction of this visa route has led to significant concerns over abuse and exploitation of individual workers.
“We have taken steps to address these concerns, restricting access to overseas recruitment unless employers have first tried to recruit from the in-country redeployment pool, but the evidence shows more needs to be done,” the statement added.
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The UK government acknowledged that the care workforce has long suffered from poor pay and conditions, leading to dependence on immigrant workers.
However, it promised to come up with therapy agreements to encourage domestic recruitment.
“We recognise that sometimes labour shortages are not due to a lack of skills. For example, vacancies in the social care workforce are largely driven by historic levels of poor pay and poor terms and conditions, leading to low domestic recruitment and retention rates.
“This Government is committed to tackling these issues and has committed to establishing Fair Pay Agreements, which will empower workers, employers, and other sector representatives to negotiate improvements in the terms of employment. These agreements will move the UK away from a dependence on overseas workers to fulfil our care needs,” the statement further read.
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