Migrant workers 'in limbo' over employer licence crackdown
"I've lost everything. Every day I'm stressed."Jamil, a migrant worker from Bangladesh, says he has been left stranded and in limbo after being exploited and then abandoned by a company who recruited him to help fulfil the UK's shortage of care workers.Following a crackdown from the government, the company he had been working for lost its licence to employ foreign workers.Now the 30-year-old does not know what to do.He's not alone - figures obtained to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act show the number of times a company had its sponsor licence revoked in the UK rose from 336 in 2023 to 1,514 in 2024 - a rise of 350%. Over a third were in London.The effect has meant migrant workers have been "pushed into destitution", the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants told the BBC, adding that it had seen a huge increase in people seeking their services.
'I paid for payslips'
Jamil - not his real name - was approached by the company, which the BBC is not naming, after he completed a business masters degree in the UK."I saw there was a shortage in care workers in the country and I thought I could give something to this country," he said.He completed training, reference checks, and received a visa through the company.But the work never followed. "I had to wait six months," he said. "From the beginning, they were wasting time. If they don't have jobs, why are they recruiting us? I felt something fishy was going on."Jamil said he felt he was exploited by the company as he gave them cash, which he borrowed from friends and family, in return for payslips of less monetary value in order to "keep his documents up to date".
After finding out the company's licence had been taken away, the company stopped contacting him. "I've applied for hundreds of jobs but it's so much stress. I've lost everything," he said.He has not received a curtailment notice - a document which formally indicates the Home Office is cancelling or shortening a visa before its original expiry date."Every day I wake up and wonder if I've got any email from them. I can't explain the stress. It's been more than a year. Sometimes I think I should go back home but what could I do from there?"He added: "I have applied for hundreds of jobs but they require driving licence so I'm learning to drive."
Rajan - not his real name - is a migrant worker from Bangladesh who was recruited by a care company before arriving in the UK.He says he was made to work 14-hour shifts in a care home for 60 days in a row, and his requests for sick and holiday leave were repeatedly denied by the company. "I kept asking my manager to have a break during Ramadan to celebrate and do some prayers. I asked for time off to go to my GP when I was sick. They didn't allow me the break - I was fully controlled by my employer."Although the company lost its licence to employ foreign workers, the 36-year-old said the company continued asking him to work. He says he has been rejected from hundreds of jobs. "I just keep borrowing money from my relatives and friends. I've become isolated, I don't talk to anybody," he said.He told the BBC he had contacted the police and the Home Office but had not received a response.
In order to hire a foreign worker in the UK, companies must obtain a sponsor licence from the UK Home Office.In 2022 the UK government opened skilled worker visas to overseas care workers, in a bid to tackle record staff shortages in the care sector.Sairah Javed, a solicitor at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, believes not enough checks and balances were in place at the time for licence applications to sponsor these overseas care workers."Within that application process, there needed to be greater due diligence and it would seem the Home Office hadn't done that at that early stage," she said.In November last year, the government announced new measures to crack down on visa abuse and prevent exploitation.These include banning companies who flout visa rules or breach employment laws for at least two years from sponsoring oversea workers, and the passing of sponsorship costs to "often vulnerable workers" will be prohibited.
'Months of limbo'
More than 39,000 workers in the care sector have been affected by sponsorship licences being revoked since October 2020.Minister for Migration and Citizenship Seema Malhotra said there were "serious consequences for those who don't respect our visa system, and treat workers unfairly"."We have already banned companies from charging workers for the cost of their sponsorship, and will be barring employers who repeatedly break immigration or employment laws from hiring overseas workers," she added. "In close collaboration with the care sector, we are also supporting care workers into alternative jobs when their sponsor has had their licence removed."She added: "I urge anyone with evidence of abuse or wrongdoing to come forward and safely report this to us and the relevant authorities so we can thoroughly investigate exploitative criminals."
But many are struggling."They've been pushed into destitution, into months and months of limbo and uncertainty, unable to support themselves or their families," said Ms Javed."Finding an alternative sponsor is extremely difficult. You have migrant workers who are forced into destitution because they can't work at all when they are in this limbo state."She added the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants had experienced a three-fold increase in people coming to the Unison advice line on a weekly basis.Migrants were also seeing long delays in receiving their curtailment notices, which is not an automated process. When a care provider's sponsor licence is revoked, UK Visas and Immigration write to all impacted workers and signpost them to partnerships for help finding new sponsored employment.The Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants access employment justice, is calling on the government to introduce a UK Workplace Justice visa which would protect the immigration status of a victim while they find new employment, and take legal action against their former employer.Its chief executive, Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol said: "We have a work migration system that puts employers in a position of great power - they hold the keys to a person's immigration status but the system doesn't come with any safeguards for migrant workers."From 9 April, care providers who want to recruit a new worker from overseas now have to first prove that they have attempted to recruit a worker from within England.A change that, for migrant workers, may make searching for a new sponsor company even more difficult.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Rachel Reeves must do more than hope for the best when it comes to paying for Labour's spending
R achel Reeves has an unenviable task as she puts the final touches to the government -wide spending review she will unveil on Wednesday. It will be a defining moment for the Labour government as she sets out departmental spending limits up to the next general election. The headlines garnered in the run-up to the chancellor 's big day are misleading. We have been promised £15.6bn for local transport projects, mainly in the North and Midlands; £4.5bn a year for schools; £22.5bn a year for science and tech, and £187m to bring digital skills and AI learning into classrooms and communities. While all are worthy, the government is playing a rather cynical game. Some of its pre-announcements stem from the extra £113bn of capital spending for which Ms Reeves created room last October by sensibly changing her fiscal rules so investment projects do not count towards her target to balance revenue and spending by 2029-30. However, her determination to stick to her fiscal rules to prevent a wobble on the financial markets means that Wednesday's statement will impose a squeeze on day-to-day budgets. Although overall spending will rise by an average of 1.2 per cent a year on top of inflation, big increases for health and defence will mean real-terms cuts for other budgets, possibly including the Home Office (which funds the police), housing and local government. So there has been a bruising round of negotiations between the Treasury and ministers such as Angela Rayner, who is responsible for housing and councils, and Yvette Cooper, the home secretary. During a media round on Sunday, Peter Kyle, the science secretary, did not rule out real-terms cuts to the police and housing. While the squeeze will technically be less severe than the austerity over which George Osborne presided from 2010, the danger for Labour is that it will feel like austerity 2.0 for many voters. Labour backbenchers are well aware of this and, after the party's poor results in last month's local elections in England, have pushed ministers into a U-turn on Ms Reeves's disastrous decision to means-test the pensioners' winter fuel allowance and extracted a promise from Sir Keir Starmer of more measures to combat child poverty, possibly by easing the two-child limit on benefits. There could also be a tweak to the £5bn of cuts to disability and sickness benefits hurriedly announced in March. The government must prioritise the fight against child poverty; without intervention by ministers, it would rise significantly over the five-year parliament, which would be an indictment of Labour. Ms Reeves must find a way to make good her promise in her article for The Independent last week to ensure ' every young person can fulfil their potential '. Admittedly, that will not be easy, given all the conflicting pressures on her to spend more. Although Wednesday's statement will not be a Budget, Ms Reeves should do more than rattle off a list of spending commitments without making clear where the money will come from. There is already a risk of doing so on defence. The strategic defence review unveiled last week is based on the government's ambition to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP in the next parliament but it has not yet allocated the funds to go beyond a rise from 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent by 2027. The UK will come under pressure to commit to 3.5 per cent at a Nato summit later this month. Ms Reeves should also provide clarity on which pensioners will receive winter fuel payments in the coming winter. The about-turn has been slow and messy, to the consternation of Labour MPs. In responding to such pressures, the chancellor and prime minister have cited the economy's 0.7 per cent growth in the first quarter of this year but there is no guarantee that will be maintained. They should not lose sight of the need to balance higher spending with genuine public sector reform. There will be a limit to how much can be achieved through 'efficiency savings'. The suspicion is that, in spending more on defence, winter fuel payments and child poverty, Sir Keir and Ms Reeves are willing the ends without providing the means. They should level with the public about how their sums will add up. For now, they may be tempted to adopt a Micawberish approach in the hope that the fiscal picture improves by Ms Reeves's second Budget in the autumn. Again, that is far from certain: more holes might be blown in her headroom against her rules by an uncertain global economic outlook in the age of Trump 2.0 and the Office for Budget Responsibility downgrading its optimistic forecasts for productivity growth. Unless she changed her rules to allow more borrowing, the chancellor would then have to implement tax rises or spending cuts or a combination of both. When things might get even worse, the chancellor needs more than a strategy of hoping for the best.
BBC News
8 hours ago
- BBC News
Newscast Spending Review: Tussles In The Treasury
Today, we're looking at what's going on in the Treasury as the final decisions are being made ahead of the government's Spending Review on Wednesday. The home secretary and deputy prime minister are both still in dispute with the department over the amount of cash they'll have to spend. Business editor Simon Jack and Paul Johnson, director of the Institute For Fiscal Studies join Laura to look at the numbers and the politics. And we look at Zia Yusuf's return to Reform just two days after quitting. You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast'. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Laura Kuenssberg. It was made by Chris Flynn and Rufus Gray. The technical producer was Antonio Fernandes. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.
Evening Standard
8 hours ago
- Evening Standard
Zia Yusuf's return to Reform UK ‘great news', says deputy leader
He told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: 'Zia Yusuf has done a brilliant job in growing the party, creating huge infrastructure, over 400 branches, but it's a massive job and as we were growing incredibly fast, essentially that job was too much for one person, so we're reorganising, and I'm delighted that Zia is staying with the party, and he's going to be focusing on our Doge unit.
