In the article ‘Open for the childless skilled only: the poverty risks of migrant workers with children under the UK points-based immigration system’ (Meyer and Bridgen, 2022), the lowest paid of our seven hypothetical households is a ‘Senior Care Worker’ on an annual wage of £13,520. We added this worker because they were added to the government’s shortage occupation list in April 2021. Our article suggests that such a worker would be entitled to a visa under the points-based immigration system. This is not the case. Despite being on the shortage occupation list, an applicant for a position as ‘Senior Care Worker’ would only be entitled to a visa if they can demonstrate that they would earn at least £20,480 annually. Thus, the findings for our ‘Senior Care Worker’ in this article illustrate what the situation of very low paid care workers would be if the government dropped the wage threshold further to meet the urgent demand for essential social services.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Reference
Meyer, T. and Bridgen, P. (2022) Open for the childless skilled only: the poverty risks of migrant workers with children under the UK points-based immigration system, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 30(1): 9–36, doi: 10.1332/175982721X16389693442869.
