UK will issue fewer than 200 Tier 1 Exceptional Talent tech visas per year

In December 2013, the UK's prime minister, David Cameron, announced a new visa route for IT workers in the UK. He announced that, as of April 2014, the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa stream would be amended to allow some IT workers of exceptional talent to apply for UK visas.


It has now emerged that there will be a cap of 200 on the number of IT workers who will be able to get these visas each year. However, it is likely that the real number will be far lower than that because it is extremely hard to qualify for the visa. In 2011, seven people qualified for Exceptional Talent visas.

 

 

Tier 2 (General) visa

'There are about 100,000 IT firms in London and many of them are experiencing difficulty in recruiting skilled workers because of the government's restrictive immigration policies. If the government wants to help, it should make it easier for IT professionals to qualify for Tier 2 (General) visas'.


The Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa allows up to 1,000 foreign nationals of 'exceptional talent' to come to the UK each year. They do not have to have a job offer before they come nor do they need a sponsor. However, they must obtain the endorsement of a 'Designated Competent Body' (DCB).


Until now, there have been only four DCBs; The British Academy, The Royal Society, The Royal Academy of Engineering and Arts Council England. Each of these was allowed to endorse the applications of either 200 or 300 people each year. In practice, as hardly anyone meets the requirements for this visa they have only endorsed a very small number of people.

 

 

Tech City

Now, the government has designated a fifth DCB; Tech City, the organisation founded by the government in 2010 to support and foster London tech businesses.


Tech City is credited with considerable success in growing the IT sector in London. It is headed by CEO Joanna Shields who was previously Chief Technology Officer at Facebook.


Tech City will be allowed to endorse up to 200 Exceptional Talent visas each year. Even if it approves all 200 each year, this is unlikely to make much of a difference to London's IT recruitment crisis. Ms Shields told journalists in 2013 'every tech company that we talk to says that hiring is a problem'.

 

 

'The category is very restrictive'

One immigration lawyer told Computer Weekly magazine that the new visa 'may benefit a handful of highly skilled entrepreneurs who want to move to the UK or relocate their companies, but the category is still very restrictive'.


And Alastair Paterson, the CEO of Digital Shadows, an internet security management company, told Computer Weekly that the criteria for qualifying for the Exceptional Talent visa made it a poor choice for the tech sector in any event.


He said that Exceptional Talent applicants must have a PhD or equivalent research experience. Most successful tech entrepreneurs do not meet these requirements. Some do not have even a bachelor's degree. Tech entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Steve jobs were "college dropouts".

 

 

'The people we are trying to hire from overseas will not be eligible'

He said 'How many of the founders, CEOs and CTOs of the top Silicon Valley tech firms have PhDs? Not many…As such the new measures make no difference to us as a start-up since the people we are trying to hire from overseas will not be eligible for this new arrangement'.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

Canadian immigration ministers agree to cooperate on visa reform

On Tuesday 18th March 2014, Canada's immigration minister Chris Alexander met in Ottawa with the immigration ministers of Canada's provinces and territories to discuss Canada's future immigration policies.


According to a joint statement they have 'reiterated their commitment to actively recruit economic immigrants that have the skills the Canadian economy needs most'.


The statement says that they intend to increase the percentage of Canada's total immigrant intake that is made up of economic migrants. In 2012, 62% of migrants were in the economic stream. They said that they intended to increase this figure to 'a minimum of 70%, nationally and by jurisdiction in the years ahead'.

 

 

Federation

Canada is a federal country comprising ten provinces and three territories. Each of them has considerable autonomy in most matters. This is particularly so in the case of Quebec, the only French-speaking province. Each of the territories and provinces is a 'jurisdiction' and each will attempt to increase economic immigration to 70% of the total 'in the years ahead'.

 

 

Federal Skilled Worker Program

Canada's main skilled immigration program at present is the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP). Around 55,000 people annually receive permanent residence visas under this program.


Skilled workers can apply under the FSWP in one of the three following circumstances:

• They have an offer of full-time employment in Canada.
• They are skilled in one of 24 eligible occupations on CIC's eligible occupations list. Only 5,000 eligible occupation visas will be issued annually.
• They are studying for a PhD in Canada

In recent years, however, a greater number of immigrants have been selected for permanent residence visas via the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). The PNP is a system which allows provincial and territorial governments to nominate applicants for Canadian permanent residence visas. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), the federal immigration department, will then decide whether to grant a visa.

 

 

Expression of Interest

At their meeting, the immigration ministers agreed to continue to work together on a replacement for the FSWP; the new 'Expression of Interest' (EOI) system. They announced that they intend that the new system will be introduced in January 2015.


According to the ministers' statement, The EOI system 'will complement the Provincial Nominee Program'.


Canada's EOI system was first proposed by Canada's last immigration minister Jason Kenney. Mr Kenney based his plan on the Australian SkillSelect EOI system. Under the SkillSelect system, foreign workers interested in immigrating to Australia make an initial approach to Australian immigration.

 

 

Employers select suitable candidates

In the 'Expression of Interest' system applicants provide details of their skills, qualifications and experience. The applicant's details are then placed in a searchable database. Employers are able to browse EOIs online and select a suitable candidate.


This candidate will then be invited to apply for a visa. At this point, he or she must provide proof of all the claims made in the EOI (for example educational certificates).
It is thought that the Canadian EOI system will be similar but that employers will not be able to search the database of applicants.

 

 

Court case

As immigration minister, Mr Kenney was concerned at the lengthy backlogs in the FSWP system. By 2012, some applicants were waiting for eight years to have their applications processed. As a result, Mr Kenney took drastic action, terminating all applications made before February 2008.


Many of the applicants who lost the chance to emigrate to Canada as a result sued CIC but lost their case. Mr Kenney's decision shortened the waiting time for a FSWP visa considerably but applicants were still waiting for two years for a decision. Mr Kenney said that, for Canada to compete for international talent, it had to reduce waiting times.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Canada. Please visit our Canadian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/canada.html

UK Immigration announces changes to Points-Based System

The UK's Immigration Minister James Brokenshire has announced 'a package of changes to Points-Based System work routes' which he says 'improve flexibility for applicants and help to boost economic growth'.


Mr Brokenshire submitted a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons on 13th March 2014.
 

The changes are

• Creating a new Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa category for IT workers. To qualify for an Exceptional Talent visa, applicants must first gain the endorsement of a 'Designated Competent Body' (DCB). There are currently only four DCBs; the Royal Society, Arts Council England, the British Academy and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Mr Brokenshire has announced that the London IT body Tech City will now be granted DCB status and will be able to endorse talented IT workers. There is no word yet as to how many visas will be available but it is unlikely to be more than 500 per year.
• Reforming the Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) visa category by 'removing the ring-fencing of places for MBA graduates'. Last year, Home Secretary Theresa May announced that she would double the number of Graduate Entrepreneur visas available to 2,000 a year but said that the extra 1,000 would be 'ring-fenced' for MBA graduates only. All graduates will now be eligible for all Graduate Entrepreneur visas.
• Applicants for Tier 2 skilled worker visas will now be able to apply for a visa lasting five years. This will apply both to Tier 2 (General) visas and Tier 2 (Intra Company Transfer) visas. Currently, the maximum initial duration of a Tier 2 visa is three years.

 

 

Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa

UK Prime Minister David Cameron first announced the changes to the Exceptional Talent visa stream in a speech in London in February. Mr Brokenshire's announcement added few details to Mr Cameron's announcement.

Annual cap of 1,000

'It is extremely difficult to qualify for an Exceptional Talent visa. There is a nominal annual cap of 1,000 on the number of exceptional talent visas available but it is so difficult to qualify that nowhere near that number of visas has ever been issued. In fact, in 2011, only seven people were granted this visa and there have been fewer than 100 issued each year since then.


'There are over 500,000 people working in IT in London and industry insiders say there are significant skills shortages. Issuing a small number of Exceptional Talent IT visas a year will make little difference'.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

UK immigration 'must not sell citizenship' say MPs

A committee of MPs has warned the UK's Coalition government against selling Tier 1 (Investor) visas at auction.


Last month, the government's independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) suggested that the government should auction off 100 'premium' investor visas each year with a reserve price of £2.5m each. These would allow their holders to qualify for UK citizenship within months.


But the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons urged the government to reject this advice. The committee met on Thursday 20th March 2014.

 

 

'The government must not sell citizenship to the highest bidder' - Vaz

The committee's chairman, Keith Vaz, said 'The Government must not sell citizenship to the highest bidder. This method has considerable benefits for the applicant but brings little benefit to the UK. We fail to see how this fits in with the Government's desire for the UK to attract only the "brightest and the best".'


Mr Vaz said 'Those who seek to acquire British citizenship should be fit and proper'. He said 'the lack of due diligence on individuals is a recipe for disaster'. In fact, the MAC report did stipulate that premium visa applicants would be subject to the usual due diligence requirements.


On 25th February, the MAC made its recommendations in a report published on 25th February. The report stated that the Tier 1 (Investor) visa is currently of questionable benefit to the UK.

 

 

Tier 1 (Investor) visa

The Tier 1 (Investor) visa allows wealthy people from outside the European Economic Area to apply for a UK residence visa if they invest £1m in a qualifying investment in the UK. The visa lasts initially for three year and four months and can be extended.


Those who invest £1m can apply for a UK permanent residence visa (known as Indefinite Leave to Remain or ILR) after five years. Those who invest £5m can apply after three years and those who invest £10m can apply after two years.


The MAC said that most people currently applying for the visa, about 500 people annually, invest £1m in UK government bonds for five years. The MAC said that this was of little benefit to the UK because the UK has no difficulty in selling its government bonds anyway.

 

 

Little evidence of active investing

There is also little evidence that many of those with Investor visas actually do any active investing in UK business and create jobs, according to the committee.


Committee chairman Professor David Metcalf told journalists at a press conference to mark the publication of the report said 'When people say 'Isn't it awful to sell visas', I reply that it is better than giving them away, which is what we're doing now'.


Professor Metcalf suggested that at least £50m a year of the money raised from auctioning the visas should go towards good causes.

 

 

'Little apparent ability to carry out due diligence'

But the Home Affairs Committee rejected the report's suggestions. The Committee warned that the proposals would mean that foreign nationals would be able to purchase citizenship leaving the UK with 'little apparent ability to carry out due diligence on the individual' and would impose 'no expectation to learn English and only require them to actually reside in the UK for 90 days a year'.


The Home Office is expected to respond to the MAC report within the next few months.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

H-1B cap 'costs US 500,000 jobs a year'

The cap on the number of H-1B visas is costing the US economy one new job every 43 seconds, according to a tech industry pressure group. According to Dr Matthew Slaughter of Compete America, 500,000 more jobs would have been created in the US in the last year if the H-1B cap had not existed.


At present there is a cap of 85,000 on the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each year. Dr Slaughter reached his 500,000 figure by calculating how many more visas would have been issued had there been no cap and then using existing research about the number of jobs created by H-1B visa holders to calculate the number of additional jobs that would have been created in the economy.


H-1B visa holders are allowed to enter the US to work in a 'specialty occupation'. Under the current system, 65,000 H-1B visas can be issued annually to workers with a bachelor's degree or a level of knowledge gained through work experience and training which amounts to 'degree equivalence'. A further 20,000 visas can be issued to workers with advanced degrees such as PhDs and doctorates.

 

 

H-1B lottery

Every year, USCIS accepts applications for at least five days. If, at the end of that time, the number of applications exceeds the caps, USCIS stops accepting applications and holds a lottery to distribute the available visas among those who have applied.


Demand far outstrips supply. In 2013, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) opened for applications on April 1st and accepted applications for five days. By the end of that time, it had received 124,000 applications.


So, within five days, USCIS received nearly 40,000 more applications than there were visas available. Had it stayed open for longer, no doubt many more visa applications would have received.

 

 

Four US jobs directly dependent on each H-1B visa

Dr Slaughter told Fox Business News that research shows that four jobs for US workers are created directly to support every H-1B visa holder. He maintains that four times that number is created in the wider economy in service industries and supply chains and so forth.


Dr Slaughter has created a 'Jobs Loss Calculator' which is to be found on the Compete America website. The counter shows the number of jobs lost because of the cap since April 1st 2013 according to Professor Slaughter's calculations.


The counter rises by one every 63 seconds. At the time of writing, it stands at 487,165. The CEO of Compete America Scott Corley said 'every few seconds of every business day, America loses another job that would have been created by a high-skilled immigrant who couldn't get a work visa due to out-dated limits on the number of H-1B visas issued'.

 

 

Increasing the number of H-1Bs would create jobs

Compete America CEO Scott Corley issued a statement saying 'it is incredible that we are deliberately preventing the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs each year. The most efficient and effective way to create jobs in America is to increase the number of H-1B visas issued.'


Compete America is a lobbying group backed by many leading US tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Intel.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United States. Please visit our American page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/usa.html

Australian immigration minister announces 457 visa investigation

Michaelia Cash, Australia's Assistant Immigration Minister, has announced an investigation into the 457 temporary work visa. She has established a public inquiry which will look into the level of 'rorting' or abuse of the 457 visa.


It will investigate whether the requirement for 'labour market testing' (LMT) should be scrapped. LMT was introduced by the last Australian Labor government to prevent abuse of the 457 visa.


LMT requires Australian businesses to advertise vacant positions in the Australian media before nominating a foreign worker for a 457 visa to fill the role.

 

 

Rorting

The panel has been asked to examine whether 'rorting' is widespread. If it finds that abuse of the visa is rare, as many Australian business organisations claim, then it will probably recommend that LMT should be scrapped. If it finds that abuse of the visa is commonplace, then it will probably recommend that LMT should continue.


This makes the composition of the inquiry panel a matter of some importance. Australian unions have complained that there is no union representation on the panel and that some of the members of the panel are known opponents of LMT.


Ms Cash has appointed senior figures from the Australian business community to the panel. It will be chaired by Professor Peter MacDonald of the Australian National University.

 

 

Industry figures

Other members are Jenny Lambert of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, John Azarias of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Kate Malyon, an immigration lawyer with Ernst and Young.


The unions protest that the composition of the panel means that its conclusions are a foregone conclusion. Scott McDine of the Australian Workers' Union said that the inquiry has been 'stacked to deliver a predetermined outcome that will hurt Australian workers'.


The unions believe that Australian employers have used the 457 visa to import cheaper foreign workers when there were Australian workers available to do the job. The unions supported the decision of the Labor Government to introduce LMT in 2013.

 

 

Allegations of rorting 'exaggerated'

Employers complained that union allegations of 'rorting' were exaggerated and that the additional expense of complying with LMT was a waste of time and money that would harm the competitiveness of Australian businesses.


Indeed, the unions have complained that the immigration minister, Scott Morrison has already decided the outcome of the inquiry. Mr Morrison told Australian broadcaster Sky News on Wednesday 12th March 2014 that the inquiry the inquiry had been established to 'remov[e] union red tape which was put there by the previous government'.


The Australian Council of Trade Unions has written to Ms Cash to complain about the lack of union representation. The Australian newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald says that Ms Cash has responded to the unions saying 'the government respects the important role unions play in the community'. However, Ms Cash has not offered to appoint an union representative onto the panel.

 

 

457 visa lasts up to four years

The Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457) allows skilled workers from overseas to live and work in Australia for up to four years. To qualify, an international worker must be sponsored by an Australian business.


457 visa holders can bring their spouses and dependent children with them. They can enter and leave Australia as often as they like while their visas are current.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Australia. Please visit our Australian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/australia.html

UK to appoint cabinet level Immigration Minister

The UK's Prime Minister, David Cameron, is considering creating a new 'Cabinet-level' Immigration Minister post, according to the online newspaper The Huffington Post. The Immigration Minister would not be a full member of the Cabinet but would attend most Cabinet meetings.


Currently, the immigration minister is a junior minister in the Home Office who does not sit in the Cabinet and reports to the Home Secretary. The Huffington Post says that Mr Cameron is considering creating the new cabinet level post at the time of his next cabinet reshuffle at the end of May.


According to the Huffington Post, Mr Cameron intends to appoint Grant Shapps, the current chairman of the Conservative Party, to the position. This could be seen as a demotion according to the Huffington Post, after Mr Shapps's disappointing performance in the role of party chairman. It would also probably mean a swift end to the ministerial career of James Brokenshire, the current Immigration Minister, who was only appointed to the position in February after his predecessor, Mark Harper, resigned.

 

 

Immigration minister was employing illegal immigrant

Mr Harper resigned after he discovered that, for the last seven years, he had been employing an illegal Colombian immigrant as a cleaner for his London flat.


Mr Brokenshire used his first speech as minister to criticise 'the metropolitan elite' who benefited from immigration because they received 'cheap tradesmen and services' at the expense of British workers.


This speech led to considerable embarrassment for various government ministers who many would say are part of the 'metropolitan elite' that employs immigrant staff.

 

 

Home Secretary employs Brazilian cleaner

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander and the Home Secretary Theresa May both admitted that they used foreign cleaners and Mr Cameron and the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg both revealed that they used foreign nannies to look after their children.


Mr Cameron and his wife employed two women, one from Nepal and another from Australia, to look after their children.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html