The immigration cap

The CIPD’s Labour Market Outlook, published in February, found that demand for migrant workers was on the increase. More than a fifth of 759 employers surveyed were planning to recruit migrant workers in the first quarter of 2011, while over four in 10 reported difficulties filling vacancies with workers from within the UK and EU. Yet one in six had been prevented from recruiting from outside the European Economic Area (made up of EU countries plus Norway and Iceland) by the temporary immigration cap in place since last July. With that temporary cap replaced (from 6 April) with a permanent one, a maximum of 21,700 certificates of sponsorship (CoS) will be issued from April 2011 to April 2012.