Category: Uncategorized

From roundtable to recommendations: How LaMP’s proposals are shaping UK policy on care workforce migration

Posted on September 23, 2026 by - Uncategorized

In June, LaMP presented its proposals at a parliamentary roundtable convened by the APPG for Adult Social Care and the APPG on Migration, chaired by Tim Farron MP, to examine the future of the adult social care workforce – a year on from the closure of the Health and Care Worker visa route. This week, the two APPGs published their joint paper, From Commitment to Delivery: Securing the Adult Social Care Workforce. We’re pleased to have helped shape both the push for this paper and much of what it recommends. 

This work lands at a significant moment for the Casey Commission – an independent review chaired by Baroness Louise Casey to recommend how to reform and transform adult social care in England. Following the Prime Minister’s July policy speech, the Commission’s second phase – covering the longer-term transformation of the care system, including funding and workforce design – has been brought forward from its original 2028 timeline to summer 2027. That creates a narrower but more urgent window for the evidence in this paper, and the principles we’ve been advocating, to shape the foundations of a “National Care Service”. 

The evidence we brought to the table 

Our contribution to the roundtable drew on 15 months of consultation with more than 100 stakeholders across the UK’s migration and care sectors – including care providers, regional hubs, matching platforms, government officials, civil society organizations and migrant workers themselves. 

What emerged was a picture of a system under strain, with several problems reinforcing one another. Care vacancy rates remain around three times higher than the whole-economy average. Around 26,000 care workers have been displaced since the closure of the international recruitment route, yet there is no unified system to connect displaced workers with employers who need staff. At the same time, new Certificates of Sponsorship can take 8–20 weeks to issue, while displaced workers have just 60 days to find a new sponsor before losing their right to remain. 

The result is a system in which employers can have urgent workforce needs while experienced workers are left navigating a fragmented and time-critical process to stay in work.  

The building blocks of a sustainable workforce system 

The APPGs’ paper sets out several recommendations for building a more sustainable adult social care workforce. Several closely reflect principles LaMP has been advocating through our work with the sector over the past 15 months. 

  1. Make workforce need the starting point

The paper calls for a “workforce-led and ethical approach to future migration”, developed jointly with the sector and based on clear evidence of demand. 

This is something we’ve been pushing for: migration policy should be connected to real workforce planning and labor market needs, with the sector involved in shaping how international recruitment works in practice. 

  1. Build a system that is transparent, accountable and protects workers

The paper recommends a national care workforce register, alongside greater portability between licensed providers. 

We’ve been making the case for both. A more transparent system for workers, employers and recruitment agencies would make it easier to understand who is operating within the system, while greater portability can give workers more security when employment breaks down – and reduce the power imbalance that can leave workers vulnerable to exploitation. 

  1. International recruitment should complement domestic investment

The paper is clear that “international recruitment must complement, rather than replace, sustained investment in the domestic workforce.” 

That is another principle we’ve consistently advocated: international recruitment is one component of a sustainable workforce strategy, alongside better pay and conditions, skills recognition and genuine opportunities for progression. 

  1. Set standards through bilateral partnerships

The paper also highlights the importance of international partnerships in developing sustainable workforce pathways. 

Our work has looked at models where governments work together to establish standards before workers leave their country of origin — including pre-departure training, ethical recruitment requirements and worker protections. 

Done well, these partnerships can give workers and employers greater clarity from the outset, while helping to address the recruitment costs and information gaps that can leave workers vulnerable to debt and exploitation. 

These are not new ideas. They are principles we’ve been hearing from stakeholders and advocating for throughout our work on care workforce migration – and it is encouraging to see them reflected in the recommendations now on the table. 

A step towards greater portability – but the detail matters 

The government’s latest changes to the Skilled Worker rules underline why portability matters. From October, people on Skilled Worker visas who are formally recognized as victims of modern slavery will be able to leave an abusive employer and work for another employer – or in another occupation – for the remainder of their existing visa. The change is intended to remove the risk that immigration status itself keeps someone trapped with an exploitative sponsor. 

This is an important development. But, as ever, the details will determine how far it works in practice. The new protection depends on a worker receiving formal recognition as a victim through the National Referral Mechanism, so questions around access, evidence, timing and support through that process will be critical. Workers who have experienced exploitation but have not received that recognition remain subject to the existing sponsorship constraints. 

For LaMP, this reinforces a broader point from our work with the sector: portability should be understood not simply as an immigration mechanism, but as a safeguard against exploitation. The stronger the ability of workers to move when employment breaks down, the less leverage an abusive employer has over their immigration status. 

What happens next? 

The publication of the paper is an important point in the conversation – but the real test will be what happens next. 

The APPGs’ recommendation for a joint DHSC-Home Office review, alongside a clearer national framework for the care workforce, creates an opportunity to bring together the different parts of a system that have too often been addressed separately. Any future approach to workforce migration will need to be developed with the sector, regulators and workers themselves, and grounded in a clear understanding of workforce need. 

That is also why sustained engagement matters. Over the past 15 months, conversations with providers, workers, government and other stakeholders have helped build a more detailed picture of what is and isn’t working on the ground. The next step is to make sure that practical experience continues to shape the policy that follows. 

We’re pleased to have contributed to this process and we’ll continue working with partners across the sector to support the implementation of these recommendations – and to help build a care workforce system that is sustainable, transparent and fair. 

Read the full paper here.

Thank you to the organisations and individuals who have contributed evidence and insight to this work including the Open Society Foundation, Citizens UK, the Migration Policy Institute, RAMP, the Social Markets Foundation, Care England, Borderless, the National Care Forum, the Workers Rights Centre, Justice and Care, the National Care Association, the Home Care Association, Scottish Care, Aston Brooke Solicitors, and Lifted.

Why labor mobility is not optional for the Hospitality and Trucking sectors 

Posted on September 22, 2026 by - Uncategorized

Hotels and logistics operators have more in common than it might appear. Across geographies and economic cycles, both industries face the same stubborn reality: not enough workers to meet demand, and no clear end in sight. This is a defining feature of both industries, one that is deepening as workforces age and domestic supply continues to shrink.

A problem that won’t fix itself

This isn’t a temporary labor crunch that’s going to disappear when the economy changes. High turnover, difficult working conditions, and the persistent unattractiveness of some of these roles to domestic workers have long made hospitality and trucking hard to staff. An aging workforce is now compounding that structural problem, and the combined gap is one that no domestic measure on its own appears capable of closing at the scale these sectors need.

Hospitality

In Europe, hospitality has long managed on a combination of domestic flexible labor and intra-EU movement. Both of those pipelines are narrowing. Turnover in housekeeping and food and beverage service across the EU runs at 20-35% annually.1 These aren’t isolated staffing problems, they’re sector-wide patterns that employers are dealing with year after year.

In mediterranean markets, like Spain, Portugal, Italy or Greece, the problem is compounded by extreme seasonality. Roughly 60-70% of annual tourism nights fall between May and September, creating predictable, acute labor gaps that operators must fill from scratch every year.2 The Canary Islands are an exception that proves the rule: year-round demand, but still chronically short-staffed.

The cost adds up quickly. Industry research puts the replacement cost of a single housekeeper turnover event at €5,000-8,000, accounting for recruitment, retraining, and productivity loss during the gap.3 Operators running 50-100% annual turnover in these roles, which is not unusual, end up spending far more than they would on building a well-designed international recruitment program.

Europe is not alone in this, Japan’s hospitality sector is facing an almost identical structural crisis and is one of the clearest examples of what happens when domestic labor supply genuinely runs out. Japan received a record 36.9 million foreign visitors in 2024, yet hotels, ryokan, and restaurants are chronically understaffed as the country’s workforce shrinks and ages. Japan significantly expanded its Tokutei gino (specified skilled worker visa), specifically for hospitality, with a target of 60,000 foreign workers in the sector by 2027.4

Trucking and logistics

In trucking, the numbers are starker and better documented because the industry measures vacancy cost directly: an empty truck is an idle asset with a fixed daily price tag.

The International Road Transportation Union (IRU) puts current EU driver vacancies at over 400,000, with projections reaching 745,000 by 2028 if current trends hold.5 Germany alone accounts for 80,000-100,000 of those vacancies.6 A parked truck costs its operator €300-600 per day in unavoidable fixed cost (vehicle finance, insurance, routes left unserved, etc.).7 IRU estimates the aggregate annual cost to the EU sector at €5-7 billion in foregone revenue.8

The underlying cause is structural. The average EU truck driver is 44-47 years old, and in some markets, retirements outpace new entrants by a ratio of three to one.9 However, this shortage is not only about aging, it also reflects the persistent unattractiveness of these jobs, which demand long hours, time away from home, and working conditions that have proven slow to reform. This isn’t the kind of shortage that can be solved with another recruitment campaign or training initiative. Policy reforms to make these jobs more attractive take time and sustain investment before they produce results. Labor mobility, driven by demographic shifts elsewhere, offers a complementary path with multiple wins: it addresses the gap now, while those longer-term reforms take hold.

The sector has been taking measures to address this issue. Driver wages in Germany and the Netherlands have risen 15-25% since 2020 as operators compete for a shrinking pool. Major logistics companies, DHL Supply Chain, DB Schenker, and others, have launched internal driver academies targeting new domestic entrants. The IRU has run campaigns to attract younger workers and women into the profession.10

Japan, again, shares a similar story, following regulatory changes in 2024 that limited truck driver overtime hours, a reform aimed at improving worker condition, created an estimated shortfall of 30% freight volume.11 SBS Holdings, one of Japan’s largest logistics companies, announced plans to hire 1,800 foreign drivers from Indonesia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asia countries, a signal that the sector is already building an international recruitment infrastructure that a domestic workforce is unlikely to provide.12

What the field is telling us

Over June 2026, LaMP ran a structured listening campaign on LinkedIn posing four questions to practitioners, employers, recruiters, and policymakers working across hospitality and trucking labor mobility. The response was strong with more than 160 votes and dozens of comments across the four polls.

Who is missing from the table? Our first question asked which stakeholder type is most underrepresented in labor mobility initiatives. 40% of respondents said international recruiters, the people who actually operate the pipelines that move workers across borders. Not government agencies. Not non-profit organizations. The people closest to running these systems believe they’re still missing from many of the conversations shaping them.

What is blocking scale in hospitality? 53% of respondents identified visa and regulatory complexity as the biggest barrier to scaling labor mobility in hospitality. Not employer reluctance. Not worker quality. Not cost alone. The system itself. That matters because it suggests the bottleneck isn’t demand, it’s the system itself.

What is blocking scale in trucking? In trucking, 54% pointed to licensing and skills recognition as the primary barrier. A skilled, experienced driver from Colombia or Guatemala can be four to twelve months away from legally operating a vehicle in Germany or Spain, not because they lack the skill, but because no bilateral recognition agreement exists and the conversion process, though navigable, requires employer sponsorship, income during the waiting period, and hands-on administrative support that most operators don’t know how to provide.13 The bottleneck is in the process.

What actually works? The final question asked where respondents had seen labor mobility work best. 80% said employer-led partnerships, that’s notable because it challenges the assumption that government or nonprofit-led programs are always the primary driver of successful labor mobility.

Bilateral agreements and NGO programs are important; they often create the legal and welfare foundations that make employer-led programs possible and ethical. But the field’s reading is clear: the energy, trust, and execution capacity that makes programs actually deliver for workers and employers lives primarily in the private sector.

What stood out across all four conversations was that respondents largely agreed on where the biggest obstacles are, and, just as importantly, on what already works. In the case of these sectors, the challenge isn’t diagnosing the problem, it’s building the infrastructure to make proven approaches easier to scale.

Why labor mobility? And not just wages, training or automation?

The case for labor mobility is stronger when it is honest about the alternatives, and about what those alternatives can and cannot do.

Higher wages can help companies attract workers away from other employers, but they don’t create new workers out of thin air. Europe’s trucking industry is a good example: despite years of rising wages, the pool of available drivers keeps shrinking. That’s because wage increases can only redistribute a limited, existing supply of workers, they don’t expand it when the underlying problem is demographic (fewer people entering the field in the first place). The same pattern shows up in hospitality: when employers compete on pay in a tight labor market, they mostly end up poaching staff from one another, rather than drawing new workers into the industry.

Automation is a real long-term force in both sectors, but its timeline doesn’t match today’s workforce crisis. Semi-autonomous truck platooning technology is a 10–15-year horizon for meaningful commercial deployment, robotic housekeeping is further still.14 Automation may eventually reshape the demand side of this equation, but it does not address the supply problem today.

Japan is perhaps the most interesting case on this point, precisely because it is investing seriously in both tracks simultaneously. Japanese logistics companies are piloting autonomous delivery drivers and drone freight on rural routes, hotel groups are testing robotic check-in, AI-assisted housekeeping support, and service robots in corridors.15 And at the same time, Japan is opening its labor migration pathways faster than ever before.16 Japan understands that while automation will help, it might not arrive in time to address the workforce deficit of the next five to ten years.

Domestic training pipelines matter enormously and should be invested in regardless of what else is being done. But training initiatives alone cannot solve a supply problem of this magnitude. When three drivers retire for every one who enters the profession, the domestic pool shrinks faster than any domestic recruitment or training campaign can replenish, regardless of how well those programs are designed or funded.

The case for labor mobility

Workers in Latin America and other regions are actively seeking opportunities across borders. The challenge isn’t finding people who want these jobs. It’s building the infrastructure that allows them to move through existing pathways safely, reliably, and at scale. This often includes pre-departure training, employer navigation support, and bilateral coordination that turns a legal text into a functioning corridor.

There are well-documented cases of programs managed well with good outcomes. For example, Australia’s Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, covering hospitality, agriculture, and care, records contract completion rates above 80% for international workers, compared to roughly 50% for locally-recruited equivalents.17 The Philippine’s POEA framework has for decades produced hospitality workers whose training standards are so trusted by Gulf and southeast Asian employers that Filipino staff command premium placement in four- and five-star properties globally.18 The mechanism behind both programs is generally the same: pre-departure training, verifiable credential standards, and employer accountability frameworks that make it rational for employers to invest in the pipeline.

Wage differentials between countries in Latin America and EU destinations are large enough to make migration genuinely worthwhile for workers, while circular program design preserves the community ties that make return migration realistic and desirable. Workers who return home bring savings, skills, and in a meaningful share of cases, capital for starting a small business. Well-designed circular migration programs have consistently shown to produce real economic effects in origin communities.19

The legal instruments are largely in place to implement labor mobility. Spain’s Contratación en Origen, Germany’s 2023 Skilled Worker Immigration Act experience pathway, the EU Seasonal Workers Directive, Italy’s Decreto Flussi, and Japan’s Tokutei Gino visa all provide viable entry points for international workers in hospitality and transport. What they share is underutilization, not because employers don’t need workers, but because no one has built the navigation infrastructure that makes these pathways practical, especially for SMEs.

Our open invitation

Hospitality and trucking are not niche industries facing niche problems. Together, they underpin how people travel, eat, and receive the goods they depend on. The workforce challenge both sectors face is global, structural, and urgent, and labor mobility, designed well, is one of the few interventions that can address it at the speed and scale required.

The infrastructure to make that happen is what LaMP is building, in partnership with the employers, associations, and practitioners who are closest to this problem. If you are working in this space, formally, informally, or experimentally, we want to hear from you. What you know about what works, what breaks, and what the system is missing is exactly the input that shapes what gets built next.

We also invite you to join this year’s Global Workforce Xchange ’26, which will serve as a meeting ground to explore shared barriers and solutions across sectors, geographies and stakeholders. For more information and to secure your ticket, please visit: https://www.globalworkforcexchange.org/

If you’d like to find out more or get in touch, email Melissa Saucedo at msaucedo@lampforum.org

References

1 HOTREC (Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés in Europe). “Hospitality Workforce in Europe: Structural Trends and Policy Implications.” Brussels: HOTREC, 2023. Turnover figures corroborated by DEHOGA Bundesverband workforce surveys (Germany, 2022–2024).

2 Eurostat. “Tourism Statistics: Nights Spent at Tourist Accommodation Establishments.” European Commission, 2023. Mediterranean market seasonality indexes.

3 Center for Hospitality Research, Cornell University. “The Cost of Employee Turnover.” Cornell Hospitality Report. Figures adjusted for European wage levels using HOTREC labor cost benchmarks for Spain and Portugal (2023).

4 Japan Tourism Agency. “Visitor Arrival Statistics 2024.” Tokyo: JTA, 2025. 36.9 million figure is provisional annual total. Tokutei Gino (Specified Skilled Worker) visa hospitality targets: Japan Ministry of Justice, “Revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act: Hospitality Sector Targets,” 2024. The 60,000 target reflects the government’s five-year plan for the hospitality and food service category.

5 IRU (International Road Transport Union). “Driver Shortage: Tackling the Global Driver Shortage.” Geneva: IRU, 2023. Available at iru.org. Projection to 745,000 by 2028 reflects continuation of current retirement and new-entrant trends without structural intervention.

6 BGL (Bundesverband Güterkraftverkehr Logistik und Entsorgung). “Fachkräftemangel im Güterkraftverkehr.” Frankfurt: BGL, 2023–2024. Germany vacancy estimate range reflects BGL’s 2023 figure (80,000+) and projected growth toward 185,000 by 2030 without intervention.

7 IRU industry cost analysis, 2023. Daily fixed cost estimate (€300–600) reflects vehicle finance, insurance, and fixed overhead for an average EU commercial vehicle, excluding variable route revenue. Operator-level figures vary by fleet type and financing structure.

8 IRU. “The Economic Cost of the Driver Shortage.” Geneva: IRU, 2023. €5–7 billion estimate represents annual foregone EU sector revenue attributed to unserved capacity.

9 IRU and European Commission DG MOVE workforce demographic data, 2022–2023. 3:1 retirement-to-new-entrant ratio reflects the most acute national markets (Germany, France, Spain); EU average is approximately 2:1.

10 IRU. “Women in Transport” and “Young Drivers” workforce campaigns, 2021–2024. DHL Supply Chain and DB Schenker driver academies are employer-reported programs; scale data is not publicly published.

11 Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT). “The 2024 Problem in Road Freight: Impact Assessment.” Tokyo: MLIT, 2024. The 30% capacity shortfall estimate reflects projected freight volume that could go unserved if driver overtime restrictions took effect without compensating workforce or efficiency measures. The figure is widely cited in Japanese logistics industry reporting and is sourced to MLIT’s commissioned research.

12 Nikkei Asia. “Japan’s truck driver shortage sparks hiring spree in Vietnam, Indonesia.” Tokyo: Nikkei Asia, 2024. SBS Holdings announced plans to recruit approximately 1,800 foreign drivers from Indonesia, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries following Japan’s 2024 immigration reforms expanding the Tokutei Gino visa for transport workers. SBS is one of Japan’s largest third-party logistics companies. AP News. “Japan’s transport and delivery sectors face labor crunch.” 2024.

13 Spain DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico) third-country license conversion requirements; Germany Fahrerlaubnisverordnung (FeV) equivalency process. Timeline range (4–12 months) reflects variation by origin country documentation standards and testing queue times in destination countries.

14 European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). “Automated Trucks: Road to Deployment.” Brussels: ACEA, 2024. 10–15 year commercial deployment estimate for Level 4 autonomous HGV operations reflects current regulatory and technological timelines across EU member states.

15 https://apnews.com/article/japan-transport-delivery-trucking-labor-1c5b3524bce93e7e460dd735cbeab6c4.

16 https://asia.nikkei.com/business/transportation/japan-s-sbs-to-hire-1-800-truck-drivers-from-indonesia-elsewhere.

17 Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). “Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme: Annual Report 2022–2023.” Canberra: DFAT, 2023. 80%+ contract completion figure reflects placement cohorts across hospitality, agriculture, and care sectors.

18 Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) / Department of Migrant Workers annual deployment statistics, 2022–2023. Employer preference data draws on ILO and IOM field research on hospitality recruitment in the Gulf states and Southeast Asia.

19 World Bank. “Migration and Remittances: Recent Developments and Outlook.” Washington DC: World Bank, 2023. ILO. “Decent Work in Global Supply Chains.” Geneva: ILO, 2022. Development effects of circular migration are documented across multiple corridors; magnitudes vary by program design and origin community context.

The Case for a Global Care Workforce – How Mapping Shared Competencies Gets Us There 

Posted on September 4, 2026 by - Uncategorized

Context 

As Europe’s population ages, demand for long-term care is rising faster than the workforce that delivers it. Healthcare assistants provide the bulk of hands-on care in residential, institutional, and home settings, yet unlike nurses and other regulated health professions, no EU-level mechanism exists to compare their skills and qualifications. Job titles, training requirements, and recognition arrangements vary widely from one country to the next, leaving employers, training providers, and public authorities with few shared reference points to draw on. 

Our Approach 

Under the Building Competency and Recruitment Pathways for Long-Term Care in Europe (B-Care) project – funded by the Migration Partnership Facility (MPF) – Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP) developed the Common Competency Framework for Healthcare Assistants in Long-Term Care (CCF), comparing what these professionals should know, do, and demonstrate across five EU Member States: Austria, France, Greece, Ireland, and Malta. 

  • Comparative Mapping. The framework sets out where competency expectations converge and where meaningful differences remain across countries, without requiring any country to harmonize its national qualifications. The framework is a benchmark for employers and trainers to navigate a fragmented system.
  • Employer-Informed Validation. Building on existing literature and research, the mapping builds on consultations with long-term care providers, employers, training actors, and public authorities, making the framework responsive to and grounding it in how the sector actually operates. 

The framework is a reference for mapping curricula against core competency elements to surface gaps; as a tool for clarifying the competency profile employers and recruiters actually expect; as a compass for reviewing prior training or experience without replacing formal recognition procedures; as a benchmark for multi-country labor mobility cooperation; and as a foundation for bridging modules, interview guides, or assessment tools that individual countries can still build to their own context.  

Looking Ahead 

By establishing a common reference point for healthcare assistant competencies, the CCF lays the groundwork for more informed cooperation on skills recognition and workforce mobility in long-term care. How it gets used will keep varying by system – more regulated countries can compare incoming profiles without lowering standards, less formalized ones get a clearer basis for training design – and that flexibility is a feature, not a gap to be closed. The lessons from this mapping exercise can also help inform future labour mobility schemes in the sector, both within the five countries studied and beyond. 

Read more about our work in this space.

To learn more or get involved, please contact: 

Salvatore Petronella 

spetronella@lampforum.org 

Related Resources 

 

Open Letter: Building the workforce strand of the UK’s “National Care Service”

Posted on July 30, 2026 by - Uncategorized

Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Department of Health and Social Care

Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Home Office

RE: Building the workforce strand of the National Care Service

Dear Secretaries of State,

Yesterday the Prime Minister committed to end “decades of political drift” on social care, setting out plans to accelerate the creation of a National Care Service, and to govern this issue by “a new way of doing politics” – cross-party, evidence-led, built with the sector rather than around it.

The Secretary of State – Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP’s – own remarks, invoking Barbara Castle’s insistence that health and social care must work hand in hand, set the same test. We write to help meet it. Labour Mobility Partnerships (LaMP) has spent 15 months building the evidence base for exactly the kind of workforce reform now under discussion: over 100 organisations consulted – providers, employers, worker representatives and migration policy experts – with findings tested publicly at the APPG on Migration and Adult Social Care roundtable on 9 June, chaired by Tim Farron MP, and set out in full in our forthcoming White Paper. The proposals below are the product of that work.

With Baroness Casey’s Commission now accelerated to report next summer, the Big Conversation on Care open for evidence, and Secretary Cooper chairing a new ministerial group to drive delivery, there are three live channels for this work to land in immediately. We ask you to use ours in all three. Workforce reform is also the one part of this agenda that does not have to wait for consensus on funding or system design – it can start now.

The scale of the problem

The UK’s over-80 population will nearly double by 2045, and the sector will need 470,000 additional care workers just to keep pace. Today, 131,000 posts sit unfilled. Left unaddressed, that gap means fewer care packages, more strain on unpaid family carers, and rising pressure on the NHS as gaps in social care provision push demand into acute settings.

We support the decision to close the overseas care visa route to new applicants in response to exploitation risks. But more than 20,000 migrant care workers displaced by sponsor licence revocations remain out of work a year on, with no clear route back into a sector short of hands.

That is not a side effect to manage – it is a workforce the system is currently wasting. No single lever fixes this. It needs the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office and the sector moving together, not in sequence.

Three actions the government can take now:

  1. Stand up a national registry of care workers. Most of the pieces already exist, scattered across programmes and institutions. Bringing them together – to verify skills, qualifications and immigration status in one place – is a coordination task, not a new build, and it is the fastest way to get displaced, already-trained workers back into vacant roles safely.
  2. Fund workforce matching and bridging support properly. Regional matching schemes convert only 10–15% of placements and vary sharply by region – a postcode lottery for displaced workers, made worse by recent funding cuts and no visibility on what comes next. Stable, predictable funding for skills recognition, matching and bridging support would fix this. More money without a plan will not.
  3. Extend the 60-day sponsor-change window to at least 120 days. Sixty days is not enough time for a displaced worker to find a new sponsor. It pushes trained, willing workers out of the sector for good. This sits with the Home Office, but the workforce cost lands on the Department of Health and Social Care – which is precisely the kind of cross-departmental gap this letter is asking you to close together.

Four principles to guide the workforce strand

These should sit alongside the Prime Minister’s own principles for the National Care Service:

  • Industry-led and demand-driven – international recruitment should respond to evidenced shortages, via mechanisms such as a Temporary Shortage List, not be fixed in advance.
  • Transparent and rights-respecting by design – with greater visa portability and stronger worker protections, so exploitation risk cannot again destabilise the sector.
  • Complementary to domestic investment – international recruitment should support pay, progression and retention, not substitute for it.
  • Standards set at source – government-to-government agreements with origin countries to strengthen ethical recruitment and pre-departure training.

We would welcome the chance to put this evidence directly to Secretary Cooper’s ministerial group, and to submit it formally to Baroness Casey’s Commission and the Big Conversation on Care. Our findings have already been stress-tested with the sector once, at the APPG roundtable in June – we would welcome the opportunity to do so again with government, before positions harden rather than after.

Yours sincerely,

Salvatore Petronella, Associate Director

Laurel Hart, Strategic Communications Manager

Labour Mobility Partnerships (LaMP)

WORKSHOP How to Predict Unit Costs of Migration

Posted on July 15, 2026 by - Uncategorized

The Mobility Finance Network‘s June 2026 webinar introduced a toolkit that accounts for dropout rates and overhead to help price migration programs more accurately. MFN Founder and LaMP CFO Elicia Carmichael showed how to:

1. Understand how attrition affects per-unit cost calculations,
2. Apply a structured framework for capturing overhead in migration pricing, and
3. Build sharper, more defensible cost models for your programs.

You can access the session’s resources below:

  • Excel template: A ready-to-use version of the cost model shared during the workshop, so you can start applying it to your own programs right away.

  • Recording: In case you want to revisit how to use the tool or share it with a colleague who couldn’t attend.
  • Slides: You can use our slide deck to follow along with the video and reference later.

If you have any questions as you work through the template, or if you’d like to share how you’re applying it, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to hear from you.

 

The Mobility Finance Network is an initiative powered by LaMP that fosters collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and innovation to cultivate financial tools for workers on the move and the businesses that support them. To learn more about the MFN, sign up for announcements here.

Building Labor Mobility Pathways in North Dakota

Posted on June 19, 2026 by - Uncategorized

North Dakota faces one of the most acute labor shortages in the United States, with only 30 available workers for every 100 open jobs. In response, the state established the Global Talent Office (GTO) in 2023 to help businesses recruit and retain foreign-born talent–and turned to LaMP for expert guidance on building an effective, evidence-based labor mobility strategy. 

Since 2024, LaMP has served as a strategic advisor to the GTO across two phases of engagement. In the first phase, in partnership with Dalberg Associates, LaMP led a comprehensive assessment of the state’s workforce gaps, employer barriers, and visa pathway options–delivering a prioritized roadmap that now guides the office’s work. In the second phase, LaMP continues to support implementation through research, stakeholder convenings, and hands-on technical assistance, including designing a first-of-its-kind public visa navigation tool and co-producing North Dakota’s annual Global Talent Summit. 

North Dakota is at the frontier of state-led labor mobility innovation–and LaMP’s work with the GTO is helping establish a model other states can follow.  

You can also find the project description here.

Interview With GTO Office Director

Ageing is (in) the future for the USA 

Posted on May 21, 2026 by - Uncategorized

In the first Matrix movie Agent Smith is holding Neo down on the subway tracks as a train approaches and says: “You hear that, Mr. Anderson? … That is the sound of inevitability…”

Demography has that flavor. Over the medium run (10 to 30 years) demography is perhaps the most predictable part of our future. After all, if you want to know how many people thirty year olds there will be in the economically distant future of 2056, just count babies today (with some modest adjustments).

Ageing: The Real Demographic Challenge

The primary phenomena that all rich industrial countries will experience over the next 30 years is not “de-population” – that is coming (see Geruso and Spears, here and here) just later – but ageing. Over the coming years the population of the labor force aged will fall absolutely and the population of those over 65 will rise by about the same amount. This means that the total population will stay about the same, but will be much older.

I have written papers that document the implications of that for the future of the ratio of the labor force aged to 65 plus (many of whom are also in the labor force) for the rich industrial countries using the standard global sources for population projections, with an emphasis on the “zero migration” scenarios (here and here).

What the Congressional Budget Office Data Shows

In this post I use the recent (January 2026) projections of the US population done by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to document these trends for the USA. While in previous papers I used global data to have comparability, here I use an official US source to focus on just the USA. A strength of the CBO data is that they have detailed projections of migration by age which allows the calculations of a “zero migration” scenario for specific age groups.

I use the CBO projections of the “Social Security” population of the USA and then use their data on the immigration and emigration to calculate the net immigration by age groups 0-19, 20 to 64, and 65 plus. I deduct the cumulated net immigration from the CBO projections to estimate the evolution of the labor force aged and 65 plus populations of the USA under the scenario of zero net immigration after 2026.

The Zero Net Immigration Scenario

Figure 1: In a scenario of zero net immigration the labor force (LF) aged (20-64) population of the USA falls by 20.5 million and the 65 plus population rises 21.9 million. The ratio of labor force aged to 65 plus falls from 3.1 to 2.1.

Source: My calculations with data from the downloadable CBO data.

Between 2026 and 2056 the adult population of the USA actually rises a bit (the total population falls as, like the labor force aged, the young population falls substantially) but only because the rise in the 65 plus population offsets the fall in the labor force aged.

“Locked In”: Why Births Today Won’t Save Us

While there is a lot of debate currently about what, if anything, can be done to raise the number of births (Kearney and Levine 2022, 2025, Geruso and Spears 2026, Gauthier and Gietel-Basten 2025, Doepke et al 2023), over these horizons of a few decades the demographic is nearly all “locked in” (Goldstone). Even if births began to rise tomorrow, and rose steadily and substantially, this was no impact on the number of labor force aged 10 or 20 years from now as it just always takes a year for a person to be a year older and barely make a dent even by 2056.

While the decline in the total labor force aged is gradual and the slope seems modest. it is important. One, this is a qualitatively different demographic future than the USA’s past where “rates of natural increase” (births less deaths) led to a growing labor force. Two, from 2026 to 2036 the zero-migration scenario labor force aged declines by 3.32 million people, which is only cumulatively about 1.5 percent. But the population of Pittsburgh (not SMSA, just city) in 2024 was 307,000 and Cincinnati’s population was 315,000. So every year the USA loses a Pittsburgh or Cincinnati in the labor force aged. Three, even the gradual losses cumulate. The cumulative decline by 2056 is 20.5 million which is the combined population of the Metro areas (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas, not just city limits) populations of: Orlando, Charlotte, Baltimore, St. Louis, San Antonio, Oakland, and Miami).

But again, the demographic challenge is not so much the absolute decline in labor force aged but the combination of that decline with a larger increase in the population over 65. This matters fiscally as substantial parts of US budget are labor tax financed programs for those over 65 (Social Security and Medicare) – hence the interest of the CBO in long-run demographic projections. If we call the ratio of 20-64 to 65 plus the “support ratio” this falls from 3.1 in 2026 (and the fiscal squeeze is already felt) to only 2.1 in 2056. At current labor force participation rates this would imply well less than two people in the labor force for every person over 65.

The Gap That Needs Filling

Starting from the zero migration scenario we can ask “how many additional labor force aged people would be required to keep the support ratio at its current value of 3.07?” The results are shown in Table 1 for 2036 and 2056. This is where the numbers get eye-popping. Between 2026 and 2036 Labor force aged (20-64) population only falls by 3.32 million. But the 65 plus population grew by 11.8 million. To keep the support ratio constant at its 2026 value of 3.07 that means the USA would need 36.25 more people of labor force age. Otherwise, in just 10 years the support ratio would fall from 3.07 to 2.56. That means the “labor force aged gap for a constant support ratio” is 39.6 million people even after only 10 years of zero migration.

And by 2056 these numbers are very large. The labor force gap is 87.9 million people. There are 21.9 million more old which is a 2026 support ratio constant need for 67.4 million more labor force aged but the demography with zero migration produces 20.5 million less labor force aged.

Table 1: Additional population of labor force aged to keep the support ratio (labor force aged to 65 plus) constant at its 2026 value relative to a zero migration scenario

Year Total additional labor force aged needed (mns)
(col IV less II)		 Decline in labor force aged relative to 2026 (mns) Increase in 65 plus population relative to 2026 (mns) Additional LF aged needed to keep support ratio at 2026 level (mns) Ratio in zero migration scenario
I II III IV V
2026 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.07
2036 39.57 −3.32 11.79 36.25 2.56
2056 87.94 −20.54 21.92 67.40 2.07

Source: My calculations with CBO data.

In this particular blog I am just laying out the implications of existing demographic projections, not carrying out an analysis nor making “recommendations.” The facts are that the absence of some terrible catastrophe there will be many more people over 65 in the future. And there will be many fewer younger people, including many fewer people in the traditional ages for high labor force participation. This will have many consequences for the economy and the fiscal balances of the federal government and policy will have to adjust to these demographic shifts in ways that are going to be political painful (raising taxes on the few number of workers would be painful, lowering pension or health benefits of the older population would be painful). One margin of adjustment is creating more legal modalities for labor mobility.

 

This blog was originally published on Substack.

Strengthening Labour Mobility in the UK Care Sector

Posted on March 17, 2026 by - Uncategorized

Context 

The UK faces a rapidly ageing population, with demand for social care outpacing supply despite efforts to expand the domestic workforce. At the same time, the closure of the Health and Care Worker visa to new applicants in July 2025 has left employers struggling to meet demand, limiting access to experienced overseas care workers and leaving providers short-staffed and the economy exposed. 

Our Approach 

The Labour Mobility Partnerships UK programme tackles this challenge through a two-pronged strategy: 

– Practical Bridging & Skills Response – Displaced care workers who are already trained and experienced can be protected and redeployed quickly through bridging programmes. This addresses urgent care demand, supports worker retention, and reduces exploitation risks. 

– Systemic Reform – Advocating for a smarter, future-proof immigration framework that aligns labour mobility with structural demographic needs, ensures access to critical occupations, and strengthens the UK’s long-term social care capacity. 

We deliver this work through consultation and dialogue with government, public and private sector, civil society organisations, and migrant workers. By anchoring our efforts in the care sector, we demonstrate what is possible today, build the evidence base for policy reforms, and create a space for constructive dialogue on how migration systems can better meet labour market needs. 

This programme is supported by the Open Society Foundations (OSF). 

Looking Ahead 

By focusing on the care sector, we can develop and test practical solutions for workforce mobility, skills recognition, and visa portability. These lessons create a blueprint that can be adapted to other sectors experiencing labour shortages.

Read more:

 

 

 

 

To learn more or get involved, please contact:

Salvatore Petronella

spetronella@lampforum.org

 

 

WEBINAR Meet the Investors Behind Mobility Finance

Posted on February 25, 2026 by - Uncategorized

The Mobility Finance Network‘s June 2026 webinar introduced a toolkit that accounts for dropout rates and overhead to help price migration programs more accurately. MFN Founder and LaMP CFO Elicia Carmichael showed how to:

1. Understand how attrition affects per-unit cost calculations,
2. Apply a structured framework for capturing overhead in migration pricing, and
3. Build sharper, more defensible cost models for your programs.

You can access the session’s resources below:

  • Excel template: A ready-to-use version of the cost model shared during the workshop, so you can start applying it to your own programs right away.

  • Recording: In case you want to revisit how to use the tool or share it with a colleague who couldn’t attend.
  • Slides: You can use our slide deck to follow along with the video and reference later.

If you have any questions as you work through the template, or if you’d like to share how you’re applying it, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to hear from you.

 

The Mobility Finance Network is an initiative powered by LaMP that fosters collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and innovation to cultivate financial tools for workers on the move and the businesses that support them. To learn more about the MFN, sign up for announcements here.

What Makes Language Learning Work for Cross-Border Migration?

Posted on February 12, 2026 by - Uncategorized

Context 

The UK faces a rapidly ageing population, with demand for social care outpacing supply despite efforts to expand the domestic workforce. At the same time, the closure of the Health and Care Worker visa to new applicants in July 2025 has left employers struggling to meet demand, limiting access to experienced overseas care workers and leaving providers short-staffed and the economy exposed. 

Our Approach 

The Labour Mobility Partnerships UK programme tackles this challenge through a two-pronged strategy: 

– Practical Bridging & Skills Response – Displaced care workers who are already trained and experienced can be protected and redeployed quickly through bridging programmes. This addresses urgent care demand, supports worker retention, and reduces exploitation risks. 

– Systemic Reform – Advocating for a smarter, future-proof immigration framework that aligns labour mobility with structural demographic needs, ensures access to critical occupations, and strengthens the UK’s long-term social care capacity. 

We deliver this work through consultation and dialogue with government, public and private sector, civil society organisations, and migrant workers. By anchoring our efforts in the care sector, we demonstrate what is possible today, build the evidence base for policy reforms, and create a space for constructive dialogue on how migration systems can better meet labour market needs. 

This programme is supported by the Open Society Foundations (OSF). 

Looking Ahead 

By focusing on the care sector, we can develop and test practical solutions for workforce mobility, skills recognition, and visa portability. These lessons create a blueprint that can be adapted to other sectors experiencing labour shortages.

Read more:

 

 

 

 

To learn more or get involved, please contact:

Salvatore Petronella

spetronella@lampforum.org

 

 

WEBINAR Financing Mobility Together: Cross-border cost-sharing models for apprenticeships in Germany

Posted on February 10, 2026 by - Uncategorized

The Mobility Finance Network‘s June 2026 webinar introduced a toolkit that accounts for dropout rates and overhead to help price migration programs more accurately. MFN Founder and LaMP CFO Elicia Carmichael showed how to:

1. Understand how attrition affects per-unit cost calculations,
2. Apply a structured framework for capturing overhead in migration pricing, and
3. Build sharper, more defensible cost models for your programs.

You can access the session’s resources below:

  • Excel template: A ready-to-use version of the cost model shared during the workshop, so you can start applying it to your own programs right away.

  • Recording: In case you want to revisit how to use the tool or share it with a colleague who couldn’t attend.
  • Slides: You can use our slide deck to follow along with the video and reference later.

If you have any questions as you work through the template, or if you’d like to share how you’re applying it, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to hear from you.

 

The Mobility Finance Network is an initiative powered by LaMP that fosters collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and innovation to cultivate financial tools for workers on the move and the businesses that support them. To learn more about the MFN, sign up for announcements here.