Support migrant centric journalism today and donate
David Blunkett, Home Secretary to the UK, says he is ready to takeactions against exploitation of foreign workers. Blunkett is alsoquestioning the parliamentary opposition, which would like to see thatthere is a quota of foreign professionals occupying jobs in the UK.
"Thefacts are that we need migrant labor. We have a vibrant economy and wecan have a dual approach, which doesn't see managed migration as analternative to training, to improved education and to better welfare towork policies.
According to the Home Secretary there is ashortage in workers in the UK and Blunkett praised Scotland's attemptat attracting more migrant work permit holders from abroad.
"We have 600,000 vacancies in the economy," Blunkett says and adds the Home Office is learning from the Scottish program.
Scotlandis currently trying to put itself on the map by trying to attract asmany foreign professionals as possible. Till 2009, the aim is to haveincreased foreign professionals to 8,000.
Blunkett also points out that there are cases of exploitation of foreigners working in the UK. He says there will be judicial changes to the system in order to prevent this from happening.
"We'regoing to strengthen the law on top of the Gang Masters Bill, around theissue of illegal employment and we're going to work on providingadditional information to workers coming into our country," Blunkettsays.
For more information on living in the UK, please find it here on our UK pages. We also have information about the UK Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP).
