Migration Advisory Committee publishes IT and engineering review

The Migration Advisory Committee has published its report looking at how companies use immigration routes to recruit IT and engineering workers, after the Home Office asked that publication was delayed until after the immigration white paper. The overview states:

We support the idea of regularly reviewing occupations or sectors, especially where it seems they may have an overreliance on the immigration system. However, within this review this overreliance is not apparent, and at least from an immigration perspective, we have not found major problems to be fixed. Usage of the immigration system is broadly proportionate to the size of the IT and Engineering sectors, within the rules and clearly responding to demand in the UK labour market. Migrants in these occupations have a positive fiscal impact on the UK. Regardless of whether there are domestic skills shortages, the UK benefits from healthy growth in IT and Engineering, which contribute to productivity across other sectors and the development of high-skilled, high-wage economy. They are likely to be key sectors for the industrial strategy.

No formal recommendations were made, only observations and suggestions. At the end of the report is a useful summary of the commissioning questions and answers.