WIREDGOV

Gerwyn Davies, Labour Market Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) comments as follows on official quarterly migration statistics published earlier today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS):

“While it’s right that the Government continues to review the wider societal impact of immigration, it’s important to recognise the vital role that migrants continue to play in a growing UK jobs market. Employers have undoubtedly benefitted from the increased supply of more experienced and highly-qualified migrants from all corners of the globe to fill the sharp increase in the number of vacancies they have created over the past year.  

“Overall, employers are choosing to employ more experienced and qualified workers from overseas over less experienced UK workers, or simply because there are not enough applicants in the local labour market.  As CIPD research shows, what the vast majority of employers are not doing is hiring migrants to lower the wage bill or offset the need to train the workforce.

“The question therefore is not whether ambitious employers who are recruiting migrant workers should be restricted in their efforts to grow their businesses and contribute to the UK economy.  It is a broader issue about how we can increase the number of firms looking to grow the capabilities of their workforces and provide more opportunities for job progression. We need to rebalance our jobs economy, to reduce the large proportion of low-skilled jobs, and to invest in a broader skilled, more competitive workforce”.  

Looking at today’s figures in more detail, Davies continues: “The increase in the number of migrants from EU15* countries looking for work is particularly significant because we know that they are disproportionately employed in highly-skilled, value-added jobs, which reflects the modest productivity dividend EU15 migrants provide to UK businesses. 

“At the same time, a significant statistical increase in the number of Romanians and Bulgarians (EU2) seeking work has helped address the difficulty employers have had in filling low-skilled vacancies, which has seen a higher share of the employment growth we have seen recently.  This is largely because difficulty attracting UK-born candidates to fill unskilled or semi-skilled roles remains the most important reason for employing EU migrants”.  

* EU15 refers to countries who joined the EU prior to 2004, such as France, Germany and Italy