London:Information Technology (IT) technicians from India and other countries outside Europe are no longer needed in Britain, a British government panel said Tuesday.

IT workers are in a list of 353 occupations published by the government's Migration Advisory Committee detailing what kinds of workers and skills are needed in Britain - and what are not.

According to the so-called 'shortage occupation list', social workers, midwives and care workers from outside Europe are no longer needed.

Racehorse trainers, on the other hand, are needed, as are ship and hovercraft officers.

Teachers, in general, are not needed - except for those teaching mathematics and science, of whom there is a shortage in Britain.

The IT sector is a well-known Indian-dominated sector, but care workers and racehorse trainers are also areas where Indians have a substantial presence.

The Migration Advisory Committee was set up last year to help the government implement a new points-based immigration system, under which would-be migrants are awarded points according to their skills, experience, income and qualifications.

For the system to be effective, Britain would have to have an idea of which sectors had a skills gap and which didn't - and the Committee is expected to meet periodically to draw up such lists.

In what was described by its chair Prof. David Metcalf as the largest such exercise in the world, the Committee evaluated each sector through 12 indicators - including pay levels, which controversially assumes that people on higher pay are necessarily more skilled.

Using the pay-level indicator, the Committee concluded that only care workers who earned 8.80 pounds or more per hour were needed in Britain, drawing a strong protest from the sector, which said the average pay for care workers was between 6 and 7 pounds per hour.

A representative of care homes said the sector "tries hard" to recruit from Britain and Europe, but has not succeeded, with a 2006 study showing 68 percent of care workers in the London area came from outside Europe.

There is a rising demand for care workers in Britain, fuelled in particular by the needs of the elderly, whose ranks have swollen because more and more Britons are living longer.

Across the country, some 60 percent of care workers are said to come from outside Europe, mainly the Philippines, India and Zimbabwe.

Care home representatives say the sector has invested millions of pounds into training their staff and that those earning less than 8.80 pounds are not necessarily unskilled.

However, Prof Metcalf said the list would help create a situation where "the labour supply will be more skilled than previously."

On Sunday an all-party group of MPs called for "balanced migration" and four-year limits for foreign workers, saying Britain will not be able to cope with an estimated seven million additional migrants forecast to arrive by 2031.

 

Source : IANS