Listen to any Parliamentary debate on the question of whether to allow asylum seekers to work in the UK and the principal objection is immediately clear; doing so will create an economic pull factor for illegal migrants, who will jump on a small boat or the back of a lorry and immediately start making money at the expense of British workers, whilst adding to the backlog of asylum claims. This argument is underpinned by the assumptions that the majority of asylum seekers are in fact economic migrants who choose to move to the UK to enhance their employment prospects, and that they have enough detailed knowledge about each individual country’s asylum systems to make informed choices about destinations, a concept otherwise known as ‘asylum shopping.’ These predications form the basis of current Home Office policy guidance which prescribes ‘a clear distinction between economic migration and asylum that discourages those who do not need protection from claiming asylum to benefit from economic opportunities that they would not otherwise be eligible for.’
So determined is the Home Office to remove any such pull factor out of the equation that, since 2002, the UK has notably been the only country in Europe to enforce a 12-month ban on asylum seekers’ employment rights; in Germany there is a wait of three months and in Italy only two. Even after the 12 month period, they are restricted to occupations listed in the Government’s Shortage Occupation List, which includes professional ballerinas and numbered orchestral string players, rendering their access to the labour market superficial.
You might be sympathetic to this policy if it had any real grounding in empirical research. It does not. First of all, when discussing reasons for irregular migration, an understanding of push factors is arguably far more imperative. There is clear evidence that conflict is the single most significant factor associated with asylum claims in Europe. Considering this, it is not surprising that qualitative studies have shown that many asylum seekers, particularly women and young men, do not even know their final destination when fleeing conflict, this being decided either by their families, smugglers, or other agents.
More importantly, the perceived pull factor of superior career prospects does not factor in asylum seekers’ decision making when fleeing to the UK. In fact, studies which have looked into the links between European asylum policies and the number of asylum applications received in each country have found no correlation between labour market access for asylum seekers and an increase in asylum applications. In actuality, asylum seekers have reported little to no knowledge of the UK’s asylum policies on arrival, despite the longevity of the 12-month ban, and assume that they will be expected to work in order to support themselves. Many do not know how to claim asylum, and some do not even know what asylum is until they arrive. Such limited knowledge of UK asylum policy clearly disproves the notion of asylum shopping; removing the permission to work has had no demonstrable impact on asylum seekers’ decisions to seek refuge.
It’s also worth pointing out that an abundant availability of illegal work is likely to be of far greater attraction to irregular migrants who have no legitimate claim to asylum than legal labour market access to those awaiting a decision on their claim. The OECD has cited the illegal employment of foreign workers as a major pull factor for irregular migration, calling for labour market and migration policies which facilitate legal pathways to work. Ironically then, by refusing to allow asylum seekers to work, the Government is creating its own pull factor.
Well might the Government insist that its remaining work ban on asylum seekers is an appropriate policy response to the refugee crisis. However, it is a policy response to the perceived anti-immigrant feeling amongst the voting public, (which is in itself a fallacy considering 71% of people polled by Refugee Action agreed that people seeking asylum should be given the right to work), rather than a response to well-evidenced research. Moreover, this policy encourages, rather than dissuades, illegal migration by those who see economic opportunities in the informal sector, which only serves to undermine the ‘pull factor’ argument. It is surely time for the Government to see sense; to halve the waiting time to sixth months and to dispose of the inadequate Shortage Occupation List. To do so is to listen to the real evidence.