Emigration cap will hurt UK companies

One in 10 private sector employers in the UK are planning to relocate their jobs overseas next year.

According to a new study that was handled by Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), many companies are looking to export their call centers, finance and IT jobs. About two thirds of those putting work offshore intend to take jobs to India. Another third plan to take their jobs to China, and three out of 10 are taking jobs to Eastern Europe.

Of the companies questioned, 42% felt the literacy skills of British graduates had fallen over the past five years compared with just the 6% who said that it had improved.

Companies are turning to foreign talent to alleviate the burgeoning skills shortage that’s made worse by the emigration cap due to be imposed by April 2011. The CIPD survey found that one out of every six companies will bring in emigrant workers in the third quarter of this year to cut down on problems next year.

Gerwyn Davies, CIPD public policy adviser, said although UK employers would rather not hire labour from outside the EU because it is costly and time-consuming, many are forced to do so because of a skills shortage.

“The reality for employers is that training workers to plug the UK skills gap is a lengthy task,” Davies said. “The abrupt introduction of a radical cap would therefore leave many employers with a bigger skills problem and tempt employers with global operations to offshore jobs, where they can find the skills.”

By April next year, the UK government will impose a cap of 24,100 workers coming into Britain from outside the EU.