Asian skilled workers' will need 70 immigration' points to enter the UK

London, Sept.10 : New immigration laws in Britain are likely to create many hurdles for skilled workers from other countries, especially for skilled general physicians, midwives and teachers of Asian origin.

They will have to pass a number of points based hurdles before coming to the UK, including speaking English, a job offer paying more than 24,000 pounds a year and a sponsoring employer.

Under the points based system, foreigners need 70 points to enter the UK. Speaking English is worth 10 points while other points come from skill and salary levels. If the job is on the shortage list, it is worth an extra 50 points.

According to The Telegraph, these three categories of workers' will face tougher immigration tests, which make it harder for them to come to work in Britain.

The points-based hurdles have been created by a Home Office Migration Advisory Committee, which published a new list of nearly 200 skilled occupations.

Besides the above three categories, the other occupations included in the new list are social workers, foreign teachers apart from those teaching maths and science, skilled construction workers, IT specialists and architects.

The new list details 700,000 jobs which are potentially open to migrants, 15 per cent of which - around 105,000 - are currently vacant and could be filled by foreigners after the new "points based" immigration system comes into force in November.

The committee rated 353 occupations and 26,000 different job titles by five key indicators including pay, qualifications and training and experience to determine which and jobs were skilled.

They then used 12 different indicators to decide which sectors of the economy are suffering from a skills shortage.

This is despite a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee recently warning that unemployment could hit two million by Christmas.

Ministers will study the list before publishing the final version next month.

ANI