Hospitality businesses urged to apply for overseas workers licence ahead of summer trade

Restaurants and hotels struggling to fill staff vacancies are being urged to use the UK's new immigration system to recruit from abroad, as the new regulations lower the threshold of the type of workers who can be employed.

The new points-based immigration system, enacted after Brexit, opened half of all jobs in the UK to foreign workers by lowering salary and skill thresholds for migrants and did away with the resident labour test, which required employers to prove that a British worker could not be recruited to fill a vacancy before hiring a migrant.

“The Skilled Worker visa route has become a viable option for employees who are struggling to fill roles ahead of the summer tourist season. It is the first summer since the pandemic without any restrictions and clients we’ve spoken to in the hospitality sector say they expect a busy year but are worried about acute staff shortages,” says Yash Dubal, director at A Y & J Solicitors.

“We would advise anyone who hasn’t already applied to the Home Office to get a licence to sponsor overseas workers to do so urgently as it takes around eight weeks for licences to be processed. This will then allow them the option to recruit overseas.”

Dubal says that the new relaxed visa rules offer a lifeline to struggling hospitality businesses but that they need to act quickly “to avert a disastrous summer”.

“Even before the hospitality industry faced unprecedented hardship due to the Coronavirus pandemic, there was already a shortage of skilled chefs, an issue recognised by the Government’s official ‘shortage’ list – making it easier to recruit from abroad.”