Drop in people coming to UK to work in NHS and social care

The statistics reveal that the outgoing Conservative government granted some 286,382 work visas overall in the year to June 2024 - 11% down on the previous year.

Detailed Home Office data shows that it approved 89,085 visas for the health and care sector in the year to June 2024 - more than 80% down on April to June of the year before.

The decline in workers wanting to come to the UK comes after the former Conservative government introduced restrictions on foreign workers and their families in an effort to slash overall immigration.

Former Home Secretary James Cleverly announced the new rules in December last year to restrict foreign workers, as figures showed net migration was running at near record levels.

Those restrictions included new minimum salary tests for both workers and members of their family.

The latest figures also show that some 432,000 visas were granted to foreign students to come to the UK in the year ending June 2024 - a total that was 13% down on the previous year.

In the first six months of 2024, the number of related visas granted to members of a student’s family fell by 81%.

Before the general election earlier this year, Labour pledged to reduce net migration. It has not set a target but said it aimed to reduce the UK’s reliance on foreign labour through workforce and training, particularly in key sectors such as health and construction.

Asylum figures also fall

The vast majority of immigration to the UK is legally-sanctioned workers, students and their families. Applications for asylum - part of the system for protection of refugees - are counted separately.

Some 97,000 people sought refuge in the UK to June. That is 8% down on the previous year.

That number includes some 38,784 irregular or clandestine arrivals, 80% of whom came in small boats across the English Channel.

The number of people who were waiting for a decision on their claim for protection hit 118,882.

That pile of unresolved cases grew after the former Conservative government stopped processing asylum applications as part of its plan to send some people to Rwanda instead.

The new Labour government has ordered officials to begin working through that backlog and to establish which of them are genuine refugees and which should be removed from the country.

-BBC