And if there wasn't enough skills-related news for the day... we now have the Migration Advisory Committee's (MAC) review of the shortage occupation lists. 1/ 7 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/migration-advisory-committee-reviews-shortage-occupation-lists

Little bit of context: work-related migration in total (driven by work-related migration from the EU) has been falling since the EU referendum. 2/7

Even before the current crisis, we naturally expected work-related migration to fall with the introduction of a post-Brexit migration regime next year. 3/7

So the MAC report rightly points out that pre-existing shortages in social care roles which are 1) low-paid and difficult, and 2) really important in say, a global pandemic, could be come even worse. 4/7

So they've recommended that senior care workers and nursing assistants, who require more qualifications/experience (i.e. are harder to recruit), be added to the shortage occupation. 5/7

Focusing on social care, they (also) rightly point out that senior care workers make up a small share of care workers (c. 10%) in the country. So even after adding them to the list, we've still got a big shortage to deal with. 6/7

And they've therefore focused on the need to improve care workers' pay & recognition. 7/7