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Local employers will have increased options to apply for immigration work permits thanks to a new policy from the Committee for Home Affairs. Healthcare employers will also be able to recruit from a wider pool.
It is hoped that the new policies will help “make elements of the employment process faster and smother for industry”.
Health and Social Care employers will now be able to apply for immigration work permits for semi-qualified and non-qualified healthcare support workers. Previously, only applications for fully-qualified staff would be considered.
Semi-qualified staff will be able to apply for a three-year permit, and non-qualified for one-year permits. The one-year permits can be extended if an employee increases their vocational qualifications during their employment.
Pictured: Committee for Home Affairs President, Deputy Rob Prow, said the changes will allow for increased flexibility for employers.
A States spokesperson said that the changes have been made to “align with the UK, adding supporting roles in healthcare to the national list of critical job shortages”.
“It will enable HSC and other health and social care employers to be more flexible when looking to recruit staff into supporting roles.”
A Population Management employment permit and UK entry clearance visa will still be required by all applicants.
A guidance document detailing the roles and criteria can be found HERE.
The second policy chance will allow all local employers to apply for work permits in advance of recruiting a staff member.
This new pre-approval option breaks the work permit application process in to two parts:
Pre-approval stage: allows employers to identify suitable candidates and apply for the permit in advance; starting the administration process early.
Second stage: when a full permit is needed, upon notification, this can be issued within a matter of days.
The employee will still need to separately apply for their UK entry clearance visa before moving to the island.
Pictured: Supporting roles in healthcare have been added to the national list of critical job shortages.
The spokesperson commented that this change was made “in response to difficulties that various industries were experiencing in recruiting staff and recognises the current delays with the UK visa processing times due to the Ukrainian conflict”.
“Through industry feedback, this division of the work permit process into two stages will enable business to hold a pool of potential employees that may be available at shorter notice.”
There is no difference to the overall cost for the application, as long as the permit is utilised within three months from approval in principle.
Immigration work permit pre-approval will be issued in much in the same way as Agreement in Principle is obtained from Population Management currently for employment permits.
Employers can still utilise the existing immigration work permit application process, the new option may prove useful for some businesses as they plan ahead.
Pictured: All employers will be able to "recruit from a wider pool" thanks to changes in the immigrant work permit application process.
President of the Committee for Home Affairs, Deputy Rob Prow, commented: “The Committee is always looking at ways in which we can help industry and employers by streamlining the processes which take place locally when they look to recruit staff from overseas.
“It is hoped that both of these changes will give more options to those employers and allow them to be more flexible when recruiting staff.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the GBA on behalf of the Committee for working so hard on this, and also working continuously to process the very high number of applications it is receiving.”
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