January 5, 2010 - By BNP News

An “industrial scale” invasion of Indian IT personnel entering Britain on inter-company transfers is putting British people out of work, says the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCO).

Ann Swain, the chief executive of the APSCO, which represents recruitment companies in Britain, said that intra-company transfers were supposed to allow specialists within a company to fill senior positions abroad.

The system is however being abused to “fill lower level roles in which the skills used are largely standardised” — in other words, to fill positions which should be done by British people.

“Intra-company transfers are being done on an almost industrial scale,” Ms Swain was quoted as saying.

Some 45,000 non-EU foreign workers came to Britain under the scheme last year, of which at least 30,000 were from India. Most had come via companies such as Indian-based Tata, which has taken advantage of the Tory and Labour economic policy of selling off Britain’s assets, both private and state.

When a company such as Tata brings its own people into Britain on an intra-company transfer, it does not have to advertise the position to local British people.

According to APSCO, most of the Indian IT workers came from low and mid-level IT jobs “where there are not significant skills shortages among British-born workers.”

Figures released by the Border and Immigration Agency show that seven of the top ten companies bringing in IT workers were Indian. Topping the list is Tata Consultancy Services, which sponsored 4,465 intra-company transfers last year, followed by Infosys Technology with 3,030.

Many of the applications approved were in low-level jobs, including almost 18,000 in what were described as “other IT-related occupations.”

Ms Swain said that many of the transfers were for jobs for which there were not shortages of British workers. She said: “These figures show how easy it is for foreign companies to bypass the UK labour market.

“Foreign companies are supposed to pay workers brought in on intra-company transfers UK market rates but you have to wonder whether there is some economic benefit to transferring Indian workers from a low-wage economy to Britain.”

Labour’s Immigration Minister Phil Woolas defended the transfers, telling a newspaper that they “made Britain an attractive place in which to do business.”

It seems that the definition of an “attractive place in which to do business” is one where British workers are put on the scrapheap while all manner of Third World immigrants are put first.