“For too long, Britain has been addicted to cheap overseas labour, while 1 in 8 of our own young people aren’t in education, employment or training. I’m putting our young people first, investing in skills they need and ending our dependence on foreign labour,” the X post read.
For too long, Britain has been addicted to cheap overseas labour — while 1 in 8 of our own young people aren’t in education, employment or training.
I’m putting our young people first, investing in skills they need and ending our dependence on foreign labour.- Keir Starmer (@keir_starmer) May 17, 2025
This move comes after the UK government announced earlier that end employing overseas care workers. The UK government’s Immigration White Paper, ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System, presented to Parliament on May 12, 2025, emphasised the importance of better controlling immigration and included significant ideas for regaining control.
As per the UK Home Office estimates, approximately 1,40,000 health and care visas were given in 2023 to address staffing shortages in the care sector of the country, of them 39,000 were given to Indian citizens.
In a press release on May 11, the government said, “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. 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.”
Earlier this week, The Independent reported on May 8 that migrants seeking to work in the United Kingdom must speak fluent English, under Labour’s latest immigration crackdown.
On Monday, trade associations and businesses responded by saying that new restrictions would only be effective if they were supported by immediate measures to assist businesses in recruiting and training UK residents.
Jess McGregor, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), told The Guardian, “Thousands of older and disabled people rely on international workers for their care and support, who often take on positions which care companies struggle to fill.”
“Cutting off this source of new workers without a plan about how to replace them domestically will worry many older and disabled people, their families and employers,” she added.
According to the Unison trade union, it was “only the recruitment of workers from overseas that’s stopped the system from falling over”.
