Overseas masons and carpenters could get work visas more easily in the UK after the government updated its shortage jobs list.
The list, which now also includes roofers and plasterers, shows jobs that employers find it difficult to fill.
However, the hospitality industry, which was struggling to recruit, was not included.
The change in construction workers is not expected to make much of a difference to the overall migration figures.
Government advisers from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) reviewed 26 occupations in construction and hospitality and recommended five for inclusion on the shortage list.
The committee recommended not including professions in the hospitality sector, despite Brexit and the pandemic having had a “significant impact” on both sectors.
The five professions approved by the committee are:
- mason and masons
- Roofer, roofer and roofer
- carpenters and carpenters
- Building and construction nec
- plasterers
People on the shortage list can apply for a skilled worker visa to come and work in the UK.
The Construction and Hospitality Shortage Review, released on the same day as the budget, shows job vacancies in both the hospitality and construction sectors have risen sharply compared to pre-pandemic levels
From November 2022 to January 2023, compared to the pre-pandemic period of January to March 2020, job vacancies are 72% higher in hospitality and 65% higher in construction.
This contrasts with a 42% increase in the economy as a whole.
The committee said its review was based on whether an occupation accounted for more than 0.5% of the sector’s workforce and earned below the current general threshold for migrants, which is £26,200.
It said it was also considering the “strategic importance of construction to the UK economy” and how its workforce is expected to change over the next decade, with “demand expected to increase significantly”.
hospitality
It said overall hospitality employment had rebounded from a sharp drop during the pandemic and “now comfortably” exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
The committee said it did not recommend any of the hospitality professions for the shortlist – including chefs, restaurant or bar managers – because “the Government understood that any such recommendation should be exceptional and based on particularly strong evidence”.
“Given the reduced timeframe in which stakeholders were required to respond to us, we may inevitably not consider any of the evidence submitted to be sufficiently strong to warrant a recommendation,” it said.
Last October, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she wanted to bring net migration down to tens of thousands.
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