Why the immigration cap isn’t biting — and why that is good news

The government’s official advisers on immigration, the Migration Advisory Committee, have today published a report into the restrictions on skilled migrant workers from outside the EU. Turns out that the much-vaunted ‘cap’ on skilled workers has only been half taken up — with numbers likely to be around 10,000 against the cap of 20,700 — and that this is offset by the high numbers of workers, around 30,000, coming to the UK on ‘intra-company transfers’. (These transfers are designed for multinational companies wanting the flexibility to move their employees around the world: the example used by the Committee’s chairman today was of ‘Japanese auto-engineers testing cylinder-heads made in Japan’ for cars being assembled in the UK.)  

There are three reasons why the cap isn’t being fully taken up. First, employers are getting round it, to some extent, by those intra-company transfers. Second, some employers are being put off even applying, by a combination of the cap and the more onerous application procedure.