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March 17, 2008 13:36 IST
Indians account for 80 per cent of applicants seeking work permits to enter Britain's IT industry last year, according to the Association of Technology Staffing Companies.
Citing government data, the British trade body claimed on Monday that employers and foreign technology workers were exploiting lax UK visa requirements and threatening British jobs.
The number of non EU information technology workers entering the UK has jumped by 14 per cent in the past year, statistics obtained by the Association under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.
In total, 38,450 UK work permits were issued to foreign IT workers in the past 12 months, compared to 33,756 a year earlier, while 82 percent of the applications originate from India.
India is also the principal offshore destination for British IT jobs.
Ann Swain, the body's chief executive, said: "Organisations have been 'offshoring' UK IT jobs in order to cut costs, but now they are exploiting the leaky visa system to import cheap labour from abroad.
"There was a fear that support functions would be the thin edge of the wedge and that mid-level IT roles would go offshore next, but what is happening is quite different.
Foreign IT workers are actually coming to the UK to take these mid-level roles."
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