UK care worker visa: Just 3.4% of exploited migrants helped by govt scheme

Business Standard

a day ago

A UK government programme meant to help thousands of migrant care workers find new jobs after falling victim to employer exploitation has helped just 3.4% of them, official figures show.
Between May 2024 and April 2025, more than 28,000 care workers whose visas were tied to their employer were referred to government-run job support 'hubs', according to data released by the Home Office under a Freedom of Information request submitted by the charity Work Rights Centre.
These referrals followed investigations by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI), which found that over 470 employers had been exploiting migrant staff and had their sponsor licences revoked.
But only 941 of the workers referred through these hubs reported finding alternative jobs.
'This casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of the government's plan to fill social care vacancies using displaced migrant workers,' said Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre.
'Instead of jobs, they got scams'
'After Covid, England desperately needed more care workers, and thousands of people from around the world answered that call in good faith,' said Vicol. 'But instead of jobs they got scams, and instead of justice they got a referral to a programme that simply doesn't work as intended.'
She called on the government to overhaul the Health and Care Worker visa scheme so that workers are not dependent on employer sponsorship to remain in the country.
The Home Office has earlier said that 10,000 of the roughly 40,000 workers affected by the licence revocations had found other jobs, but it is unclear how many of these received help from official job hubs.
Why the visa route grew—and why it's now being shut
The Health and Care Worker visa route was introduced by Boris Johnson's government in 2020. At the time, social care in the UK was grappling with a growing shortage of workers due to Covid-19, Brexit, and an ageing population.
The scheme allowed UK-based care businesses to fast-track the hiring of overseas workers, provided they were licensed sponsors. However, minimal checks were done on these employers.
As a result, thousands of workers arrived from countries like India, the Philippines and Nigeria. But many later discovered that the promised jobs didn't exist or came with exploitative conditions.
Because their visas were tied to their employers, they could not easily leave those jobs. Many were afraid to report abuse due to the risk of deportation.
Once the employers' licences were revoked, the workers lost their right to work and had to seek a new sponsor.
Keir Starmer bans new recruitment from overseas
Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government announced last month that care homes and agencies in Britain would no longer be allowed to recruit new workers from abroad.
According to the draft Immigration White Paper, those already in the UK on Health and Care Worker visas will be allowed to extend or switch into other routes until 2028 under a transition period. This policy will be subject to review.
The decision comes amid mounting pressure from Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, which has campaigned on stricter migration controls. Nearly 700,000 Health and Care Worker visas have been issued over the past five years, government data show.
In 2023 alone, the UK granted about 1,40,000 health and care visas. Of these, nearly 39,000 were issued to Indian nationals.
'Care workers from overseas have made a huge contribution to social care in the UK, but too many have been subject to shameful levels of abuse and exploitation,' the government said in a press release dated May 12, 2025.
'Workers seeking to support the UK's care sector arrived to find themselves saddled with debt, treated unfairly, or in extreme cases discover the jobs they were promised did not exist.'
Kerala scam victims still trapped in debt
Many of the worst-hit victims of visa fraud have been Indian workers, particularly from Kerala.
A BBC investigation in March found that a surge in fake care jobs followed the UK's decision to add social care roles to its shortage occupation list during the pandemic, making it easier to sponsor foreign workers.
Kerala police say they now receive daily complaints about fake job offers to the UK, Europe, Canada and New Zealand.
'This is not just about one or two isolated cases. There's a pattern here,' a senior officer told the BBC. 'Fraudsters are swindling lakhs of rupees from unsuspecting people by falsely promising them jobs.'
According to Ketan Mukhija, senior partner at Burgeon Law, scammers deliberately target Keralites.
'Fraudsters target individuals from Kerala primarily due to their strong aspirations for better employment opportunities abroad,' Mukhija told Business Standard. 'Many migrants are driven by economic necessity and the desire to support their families, making them more susceptible to scams that promise high-paying jobs.'
He added that legal recourse is often out of reach. 'Lawyers are expensive, and these workers are already in deep debt.'
Local NGO Thittala estimates that between 1,000 and 2,000 Keralites remain in the UK after falling prey to such scams. Many more are stuck in India after spending their life savings on agents.
In Kothamangalam, a small town in Ernakulam district, BBC reporters met around 30 individuals who said they had collectively lost crores of rupees trying to obtain UK care visas.