UK announces stricter visa requirements to reduce migration

The British government on Monday announced a package of measures to cut net migration to the United Kingdom, including plans to raise the minimum salary required for foreign workers to be eligible for a work visa, reports Reuters.

The interior minister James Cleverly told parliament the minimum salary a skilled foreign worker to need to earn get a visa would be significantly increased to about 38,000 pounds ($47,899) up from its current 26,200 pounds currently.

"We will stop immigration undercutting the salary of British workers," Cleverly said.

The measures could lead to new disputes with business owners who have struggled to hire workers in recent years given Britain's persistently tight labour market and the end of free movement from the European Union following Britain's departure from the bloc, reports Al Jazeera.

In a Tweet, the UK's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said "Immigration is too high. Today we're taking radical action to bring it down."

Annual net migration to the UK hit a record of 745,000 last year and has stayed at high levels since, data showed last month.

The data showed overall immigration in 2022 at about 1.16 million, offset by emigration of 557,000.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in May that 925,000 of those arriving in 2022 were non-EU nationals, 151,000 came from the EU and 88,000 were British citizens.

It estimated that in 2022 under the special visa schemes, there were 114,000 long-term arrivals from Ukraine and 52,000 from Hong Kong.

Net migration to Britain in 2015, the year before the Brexit referendum, was 329,000.

The leaders of the Brexit referendum campaign argued that leaving the EU would give Britain greater control of its borders, and many who voted to leave cited high migration and the pressure they believed it put on public services as factors in their decision, Al Jazeera added.

But in recent years, the Qatar based media said, Britain has opened visa schemes for people in Ukraine and former colony Hong Kong, while companies in sectors such as engineering, construction and catering have called on the government to allow them to hire international staff to offset labour shortages.