The Government’s cap for Tier 2 Restricted Certificates of Sponsorship (‘RCoS’) has been reached for the first time since it was introduced in 2011.
RCoS are for:
- Tier 2 (General) workers currently abroad who will be paid less than £153,500 a year
- family members (dependants) of Tier 4 migrants.
A total of 20,700 RCoS have been available each year since 2011 and these are allocated on a monthly basis to sponsors that apply for them. Just over 1,650 RCoS were available for June but the number of applications submitted by UK sponsors exceeded that amount. As a consequence many applications were rejected during yesterday’s allocation date when UK Visas and Immigration assessed the applications that have been submitted.
The news that the cap has been reached for the first time came a day after the Prime Minister had announced further measures to reduce demand for migrant labour.
