Ageing population may force UK to relax visa restrictions

Protectionism and visa restrictions may be buzzwords in today’s troubled times, but in a little over a decade, the ageing population in developed countries like the UK will force immigration laws to change. In sectors such as healthcare, where a doctor requires seven to eight years of university training, governments will have to choose between removing some of these employment restrictions and immigrant restrictions or find another way to deliver these services, told Alistair Cox, who heads the UK’s largest recruitment firm, Hays, to ET. 

He said the UK’s National Health Service employs 1.3 million people, of which 50% will retire in the next 15 years. So, the government will be hard-pressed to replace these people, he added. 

Hays is part of the FTSE 250 and has a 40-year-old history. The firm announced its India operations on Tuesday partly because it believes these trends will shape the future, and also because it thinks, it needs to be present in the world’s 12th largest economy, India. “Growth may slow down, but India will probably avoid a recession,” said Mr Cox. The firm has been working on its India strategy for the past 12 months and has opted to launch here rather than in the US. 

“We have concentrated in newer markets where we can achieve phenomenal growth rather than try and muscle into the US,” said Mr Cox. The Indian recruitment market is estimated at around 250 million in net fees and is very fragmented, according to Hays. In its area of expertise, which is mid-level executive recruitment, most of the recruitment is still handled internally by HR departments, said Mr Cox. The mid-level executive recruitment market is estimated to be around 150 million in net fees.

In the past five years, Hays has launched operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Brazil. Its next stop after India is Russia. Compared with five years ago, when 95% of its revenues came from the UK, only about half its revenues are from the UK today.  continues here

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