Growing list of vacancies lead to ‘ease visa’ calls

Suren Thiru, Head of Economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the figures showed more skills should be added to the immigration system’s Shortage Occupation List to enable the UK to attract much-needed, overseas talent.

“Record job vacancies suggest that the chronic staff shortages encountered by businesses are intensifying and this could derail the recovery by forcing firms into a more long-lasting decline in their operating capacity,” he warned.

“More significant support is needed to help firms access the skills they need when they can’t recruit locally, including supporting the hardest hit sectors through expansion of the Shortage Occupation List.”

“A new record high in the number of job vacancies in the UK has led to renewed calls for an easing of post-Brexit immigration rules.

The health sector had the most vacancies between July and September with 183,000.

The King’s Fund think tank says the NHS is facing a â€œworkforce crisis”.

According to the latest annual State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England report, the sector is struggling to recruit and retain staff, with more unfilled posts now than at the start of the pandemic.

The government says extra funding and a regular recruitment drive will help boost the workforce.

Reports highlighted the professional level occupations, which were reported by employers to have experienced the most vacancies during the survey. ‘Professional level’ means managerial, professional and associate professional roles. Nursing came top of the list, followed by HR and industrial relations professionals, business sales executives, welfare and housing associate professionals and IT user support technicians.

The report also demonstrates that despite thousands of graduates entering the job market every year employers still find certain positions difficult to fill. An employer reported a vacancy as hard to fill if they found it difficult to recruit for, for any reason. The largest number of hard-to-fill vacancies were:

• nurses
• programmers and software development professionals
• human resources and industrial relations officers
• medical practitioners
• welfare and housing associate professionals.

Design engineers, accountants, marketing associate professionals and vets also made the list.

Vacancies that recruiters find hard to fill due to a lack of relevant skills, qualifications and experiences are often referred to as ‘skills shortage vacancies’. Similar to the hard to fill list graduate jobs that experience the most skills shortage vacancies include nurses, programmers and software development professionals and business sales executives. However, unlike the hard to fill list teaching and other educational professionals, finance and investment analysts and advisers and graphic designers also feature.

According to the report the following industries experienced a particularly large number of hard-to-fill vacancies at professional level:

• architectural and engineering activities
• computer programming and consultancy
• education
• employment and HR
• financial services
• human health activities
• legal and accounting services
• office administrative, support and business activities
• public administration and defence
• residential care activities
• retail trade
• social work.

With that being said, this seems to be a great time for job seekers from abroad to think about moving to the United Kingdom in order to pursue their career.