Tag: the case for mobility

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: 

  1. 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. 
  1. 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

 

 

Skilling is the missing link for displaced care workers – and the system as a whole

Posted on February 4, 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: 

  1. 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. 
  1. 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

 

 

The Economist: How to Make Immigration Palatable in a Populist Age

Posted on November 6, 2025 by - the case for mobility, Uncategorized

Image © The Economist

In a watershed moment, LaMP’s theory of change served as the core thesis for an article in the Economist. This thesis argues that rotational visas are essential to reconciling the “unstoppable force of demographics” with the “immovable object of politics.” The article cites the rapid expansion of temporary visa programs across Japan, Italy, France, Spain, and even Hungary – with the sharpest increases seen under the most conservative leadership. The article quotes LaMP Co-Founder and Board Chair Lant Pritchett, Advisory Council member Michael Clemens, and partner Margaret Mugwanja of Silver RayHR. A parallel piece in the New York Times featured LaMP partner GATI Foundation on India’s leadership to build the globally mobile workforce that will move through these visas.

Read the full Economist article here and the New York Times article here.

LaMP’s Kenya-Japan Mobility Program Featured on National Japanese TV

Posted on November 6, 2025 by - Uncategorized

At LaMP, we work to dramatically increase the scale and quality of labor mobility, helping workers from low-income countries to access quality jobs across borders and businesses in high-income countries to address deepening labor shortages. A recent media piece featured our work translating this vision into reality.

LaMP’s Kenya-Japan mobility program was featured on TV-Asahi, a national television channel in Japan, as part of a longer documentary piece exploring Africa as the next frontier of labor migration for Japan. In a country where sales of baby diapers have been outstripped by sales of adult diapers, Japan is recognizing the need to open to a wider range of young workers to maintain its workforce.

The worker featured in the thumbnail is George – a Kenyan worker going through the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) pathway through the mobility program spearheaded by LaMP. George and two fellow workers will be some of the first 3 Africans to go through the TITP. They are following 3 others who have gone through the Gijinkoku (high-skilled pathway) and will be followed by several others in the program going through the Specified Skills Visa.

You can see our team in action here and watch the full documentary here.

NPR: Declining Birth Rates and the End of Growth as We Know It

Posted on October 27, 2025 by - Uncategorized

 

Credit: Brian Mann/NPR

NPR’s Population Shift series examines how declining birth rates are reshaping the global economy, with families worldwide having fewer children. They interviewed LaMP’s Co-Founder and Research Director, Lant Pritchett, who explained that this demographic shift is challenging assumptions about economic growth that evolved during an era of rapid population increases. He warned that we’re entering uncharted territory, since we lack historical examples of countries navigating dramatic demographic decline.

Read the full article here.

Labor Mobility as Development: The Case for Migration Pathways

Posted on October 16, 2025 by - Uncategorized

Credit: Devex

Lant Pritchett, LaMP’s Co-Founder and Research Director, argued for reimagining labor mobility as a development strategy. Speaking at Devex Impact House during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings, he highlighted the massive aging problem facing high-income countries and emphasized that facilitating migration to high-productivity settings can increase workers’ earnings fivefold—far exceeding traditional development interventions that might boost wages by only 10%. He called for orderly migration pathways and programs that help lower-income countries effectively recruit, prepare, and place workers, positioning labor mobility as one of the most powerful poverty reduction tools available.

Read the full Devex article here and watch the complete video here.

Introducing a New Approach to Labor Mobility

Posted on June 26, 2020 by - Uncategorized

This post was first published at the Center for Global Development.

OECD countries face a growing elderly population and a shrinking working-age population, while low-income countries have working-age populations that are growing faster than jobs can absorb them. Labor mobility offers a solution, connecting potential migrants (who need jobs) to potential employers (who need workers). The Connecting International Labor Markets working group convened around the question of how to make this happen, resulting in a proposal for a new organization: Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP).

The Future is Older

Posted on January 9, 2020 by - Uncategorized

OECD countries are rapidly aging – their working age populations are shrinking, while their elderly populations are growing. This has significant fiscal and economic implications for these societies, yet thus far there has been no serious policy response. In this blog, Lant Pritchett explores these historically unprecedented and largely ignored trends.