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Big businesses gives thumbs-down to points-based immigration system

From CIPD's People Management magazine.

Work permits replacement is more costly and bureaucratic

05 December 2008

Large corporations are finding the new points-based immigration system costly and bureaucratic compared with the work permits system they used previously.

Over 70 per cent of organisations in a recent survey thought the new system had increased their administrative costs, nearly half of which said Tier 2 would “greatly” increase their costs. The same proportion considered the points-based system more bureaucratic than the work permits system it replaced.

Sarah Buttler, whose immigration consultancy conducted the survey, said that in the current economic climate “it simply does not seem the right time for the government to be pushing ahead with proposals that could hinder UK companies’ ability to compete effectively in an increasingly difficult international market”.

Respondents to the survey were mostly large companies, with at least 10,000 employees, nearly half of which applied for over 100 work permits annually.