Employers with genuine labour shortages should be able to pay a levy to breach any proposed immigration quotas, according to John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

With both Government and the Opposition arguing for some form of points based system or absolute quota to restrict non-EU immigration, the CIPD says some form of a quota now seems inevitable.

Philpott says: “It is clear that … some numerical limit is now inevitable, either in the form of a single national annual quota on migrant numbers or a set of occupational or sector sub-quotas.”

However, quotas risks causing real problems for employers struggling with genuine labour shortages. Philpott argues: “To avoid individual employers being hamstrung by labour shortages… any limit or quota should be accompanied by a migrant worker levy that would allow them to hire migrants in excess of the quota.”