At an EU-UK summit earlier this week, UK prime minister Kier Starmer stood alongside EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa to share how the UK would move forward on trade, defence and work.
On Monday (19 May), UK and EU leaders announced an agreement to mutually recognise professional qualifications, ease travel restrictions for touring artists and also work towards a youth mobility scheme.
An yet-to-be-agreed youth mobility scheme is touted to make it easier for under-30s to travel and work between the UK and EU, though it would be time-limited, and was reported not to be a return towards freedom of movement.
Monday’s deal on professional qualifications is not yet fully agreed but there is an aim to reduce bureaucracy for UK professionals, such as doctors, lawyers and accountants, to be able to work across the EU with minimal bureaucracy and vice versa.
For those in HR thinking that the youth mobility part of the announced deal might plug talent gaps, Lynsey Blyth, immigration partner at law firm Michelmores, said that the deal is "unlikely to have material impact any time soon".
She said that while those in retail and hospitality especially might look to the deal as part of a fix for talent struggles, the details of the scheme are lacking and currently an area of speculation.
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She said: “This is likely because the UK and the EU have opposing ideas of what the ideal scheme would entail.
“Until we get some sort of clarity about what the scheme will actually involve, any assessment of its impact is akin to Mystic Meg's crystal ball gazing.”
Blyth added that the professional qualification recognition scheme, if it can be agreed, would cut “a lot of red tape”, eliminating the need for retraining when relocating, and potentially easing the recruitment of overseas professionals into the UK workforce.
For Blyth, while any future agreement would remove a recruitment hurdle, she only sees this benefiting traditional white-collar professions such as finance, not the sectors currently experiencing a talent shortfall.
She said: “Those recruiting into sectors that do not require a professional qualification, such as construction, retail and hospitality – basically where the biggest staffing shortages currently exist – will gain absolutely no benefit from this at all.
“Starmer's update from the UK-EU summit on Monday, does not have any immediate positive impact for talent.”
However, if a full deal on youth mobility can be reached, Tsige Berhanu, immigration partner at law firm Keystone Law, added that sectors struggling for talent could benefit.
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She said: “Industries like hospitality and the care sector could benefit greatly by filling short-term vacancies in positions that don't meet the higher skill requirements needed to sponsor permanent employees.”
For Henna Elahi, senior associate at Grosvenor Law, while any eventual total agreement might reduce the need to study again for qualifications (professional qualifications) or some limited movement for younger workers, there is no pathway towards making it easier to hire across the UK and EU.
She said the deal "does not appear to make it any easier for companies to generally hire talent and shift employees between the UK and EU.
“For now, it does not appear that there is a return to pre-Brexit freedom of movement, and companies will still need to navigate their way through the complex immigration procedures of the UK and the EU.”
