Britons fear losing white-collar jobs to immigrants

Thousands of British lawyers and accountants could lose out in job market to rivals from developing countries, including India, under plans to relax rules on how well-paid white-collar jobs in UK are filled.

From July, employers will no longer have to advertise British jobs offering salaries over 40,000 pounds a year in Britain before they make the posts available to workers outside the European Union.

The proposed removal of the Resident Labour Market Test for high-end vacancies has prompted fears that it could trigger an influx of white-collar immigrants coming to work in Britain, under-cutting British graduates.

Companies could ditch their training schemes and scour the developing world to pick up highly-qualified IT technicians, lawyers or accountants on the cheap, pushing out qualified British workers.

Under the Resident Labour Market Test, companies currently have to advertise all of their jobs within the EU for a set period of weeks before offering them to people from outside the EU.

However, under new plans to be introduced later this year as a result of a shake-up of the Government's immigration policy, the requirement will not apply to well-paid jobs.— PTI