1. The impact of the UK migrant cap:
an employer perspective
Lisa Scullion
University of Salford
Migration Research Seminar
Manchester Metropolitan University
Monday 9th July 2012

2. Background to the research
•Globalization and ‘borderless world’?
•However, as migration has increased so has demand for
‘managed migration’
“far from disappearing, many borders are being reasserted
and remade through ambitious and innovative state efforts
to regulate the transnational movement of people”
(Andreas, 2000: 2).

3. Background to the research
•Collaboration with Simon Pemberton, University of
Birmingham
•Research focused on impact of UK managed migration (e.g.
PBS and migrant cap) on health and social care sector
•In depth interviews carried out with 16 health and social
care representatives in the North West – respondents
working in either HR or E & D roles
•Sample reflected different urban, semi-rural and rural areas

4. Key issues
1. You can’t simply substitute one group of migrants for
another
2. You can’t take a ‘one size fits all’ approach
3. The uneven impact of policy

5. Substituting one group of migrants
for another?
‘If you compare the types of training that doctors in Eastern Europe undertake, it is
very different as they all work in small units and they don’t have acute-type
hospitals. So it is very rare that you find somebody with the right skills – it is
about skills, experience and qualifications…so it is far more appropriate to take
people from Pakistan, India and Dubai as their skills are more transferable’.
‘We have had limited people from Poland, and limited people from places like
Romania, Hungary, but not huge numbers. I don’t think we saw, for example, in
terms of everything you saw on the news a few years ago about a lot of Poles
coming to work in the UK, I think probably we had two or three at the most, they
didn’t tend to come for jobs in the NHS, so we didn’t really see much impact from
that at all’

6. ‘One size fits all’
‘[The Government] need to think about the Shortage Occupations [List], the hard
to recruit jobs, especially the highly skilled jobs that we’ve got in the NHS, and
make some consideration about that before they make their decision. We hope
that…there will be some sort of caveat in terms of NHS organisations’.
‘They’ve just dumped everybody in the same boat…I was talking to somebody from
UKBA about trying to employ a [non-EEA] doctor and he said ‘well, we don’t
just look at the NHS separately from chefs’…so there you are, a doctor is [now]
in the same category as a chef who is coming to work in your local restaurant
and it seems a bit bizarre’.

7. Uneven impact – urban/rural issues
‘The system doesn’t taken into account geography – areas like Cumbria should get
exemptions – people want to work in cities so if the rules were relaxed a little for
rural care homes or NHS Trusts we would be more likely to recruit [non-EEA
migrant workers] and maintain our competitiveness’
‘You get people who come to the UK and they really want to be in London and they
arrive here and find that we are in the middle of nowhere…we have found it
difficult to replace these workers’
‘The medical staff who come from big cities [a rural town] seems very much a
sleepy little backwater, a lot of people will go and have a look, but when they find
out where it is they decide not to go’

8. Uneven impact – North/South
divide?
Concessions on the PBS and migrant cap privileging London
and South East?
•Lobbying by London companies and CBI – government
excluded intra-company transfers
•Firms allowed to bring workers in for ICT if salary exceeds
£24,000 per annum

9. Thank you
Dr Lisa Scullion
Salford Housing & Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU)
Joule House
The University of Salford
Salford, Greater Manchester
M5 4WT, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)161 295 5078
Email: l.scullion@salford.ac.uk
Twitter: @lisa_scullion