India’s trade, talent pipeline under threat from Europe’s right-wing, populist surge
- The far-right’s nationalist, anti-immigrant agenda imperils services exports and the seamless cross-border movement of talent
Visa access for short-term professional work is fundamentally different from permanent immigration, said TS Vishwanath, a principal adviser at international trade consultancy ASL-Legal in New Delhi. “But many governments feel they are similar”.
The numbers tell a stark story. Over the past two decades, the share of foreign-born workers in the UK workforce has more than doubled, from 9 per cent in 2004 to 19 per cent – around 6.2 million people – by the end of 2022, an Oxford University paper published early this year showed.
This influx has brought skilled talent from across the globe, including 250,000 Indians who arrived last year alone – around 127,000 for work and 115,000 for study.
Chinese and Pakistani workers have also flocked to Britain in recent years, to the tune of 90,000 and 83,000, respectively, according to a May report in The Economic Times, citing 2023 data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics.