Tighter UK visa controls risk losing non-EU engineers, firms: Expert

March 28th, 2011 - 12:10 pm ICT by ANI  

London, Mar. 28 (ANI): Vacuum cleaner tycoon Sir James Dyson, who sits on the Prime Minister’s business advisory group, has said that he is “extremely concerned” at recent changes which will cut the number of non-European Union students in the country.

Last week Home Secretary Theresa May unveiled plans that could cut the number of foreign students and their dependants coming to Britain by around 100,000 a year.

She announced tighter restrictions on how long students could stay in the UK, before and after the end of their courses - including a rule that they must find a job that pays at least 20,000 pounds a year.

The Independent quoted Dyson, who also headed an innovation taskforce for Prime Minister Cameron, as saying that it was “sheer madness” to be “effectively chucking out” skilled engineering graduates from the UK.

He told BBC Radio 4’s The World this Weekend: “I am extremely concerned because already England is under-producing the numbers of engineers it needs by 50 per cent. There are 37,000 vacancies a year and about 20,000 graduates. So already it is very, very difficult to find engineers.”

“I am afraid what it will end up doing is driving firms like us abroad because we simply can’t get people to do our research and development,” he added. (ANI)

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