HCL HCL urges UK government to extend free movement of people following Brexit
Recruitment firms, including HCL Workforce Solutions, have urged the UK government to extend the free movement of people following the Brexit deal by up to five years, allowing some industries to better adapt to any new restrictions. "We are still getting high numbers of EU nurses applying to work in the UK," said Claire Billenness, managing director at HCL Workforce Solutions, but added the application process was slowing down the intake of staff. Billenness said anything that supported an increase in skilled workers for the NHS needed to be considered.

The BBC reports the PM, speaking to journalists during her visit to Jordan and Saudi Arabia yesterday, said there would be an "implementation" phase once an exit deal had been struck with the EU so business and governments have a "period of time" to adjust to any new restrictions.

James Webber, founder of hospitality staffing specialist James Webber Recruitment, told Recruiter the hospitality sector would need an additional year following Brexit to adjust to any new immigration restrictions on recruiting people from the EU.

“We’re already in a candidate-led market as it is. It’s only going to get harder for people in the hospitality industry. If you go to any hotels and restaurants and bars, the numbers of staff from outside the UK is pretty high.

“It’s a very transient market as well – people come and go quite quickly, so I think we’ve got two years and after two years there’s going to be a lack of candidates that we can pull from.”

Webber added the sector would also need to “professionalise” so it can recruit talent and retain it for longer periods.

“We’re going to have to see the hospitality industry as more professional and get more apprentices and more people training so people see it as an industry where they can grow their careers rather than seeing it as transient, where they come in, run a bar and then go off and do something else.”

Recruiters operating in the industrial sector claim clients will need longer – at least five years after Brexit to adjust to migration restrictions.

“The factories we work with are hugely reliant on EU workers,” Stephanie Newitt, managing director at DR Newitt, told Recruiter. “It will take a lot of years to replace workforces and get staff in place.

“You would need a minimum of five years. There is a factory in London that we work with and there’s not one British worker in their factory that’s originally from Britain. They come from all over the world. There’s some up in Scotland that have to bus people in who are an hour and a half away and they’re all migrants as well.”

Andy Hogarth, CEO at industrial recruiter and welfare to work provider Staffline, agrees. He told Recruiter: “It will take something like five years – a gradual move from one to the other on some sort of gradual reduction.

“Five years would allow companies the time to adjust and people to see what the impacts are and train people on the welfare-to-work side.”

And Claire Billenness, managing director at HCL Workforce Solutions, told Recruiter the NHS, which is already facing a raft of issues in recruiting talent, would also benefit from additional time to make adjustments to any new restrictions on recruiting EU workers.

Earlier this week, Recruiter reported the healthcare sector is currently is suffering from a “perfect storm” in which agencies are still recruiting from member states but interest in roles is dramatically decreasing.

Additionally, a House of Lords Select Committee report on the long-term sustainability of the NHS, released this week, slammed successive government’s failure to implement a comprehensive long-term strategy to secure appropriately skilled, well-trained and committed workforce that the health and care system will need, adding this is the biggest internal threat to the sustainability of the NHS. This week also sees the introduction of the immigration skills charge of £1k for some Tier 2 visa holders, adversely affecting the service’s ability to recruit non-EU staff.

With the NHS facing all of these issues, Billenness told Recruiter anything that can support an increase in skilled workers coming into the NHS has got to be considered.

“The visa tariffs that have come into effect this week, as far as the NHS is concerned, is yet another cost for them to bear. The here and now issues are around the English language testing – that has really slowed the pipeline down.

“If you compare the market to 18 months ago before the English language tests came in, we were seeing much, much higher [number of] European nurses coming to the UK – that has slowed down.

“We are still getting high numbers of EU nurses applying to work in the UK – it’s the process of getting them through the English language tests and the process of they have to go through to get their PIN numbers that has really slowed down.”

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