Employers are relying on migrant labour to fill professional and skilled trade vacancies, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The CIPD's quarterly Labour Market Outlook, which reports the results of a survey of 1,300 employers, reveals:
* 27% of employers intend to recruit from abroad in this economic quarter.
* The dominant reasons for recruiting from abroad given by employers are a shortage of candidates with the required experience (59%) or the required skills (56%).
* 56% of employers recruiting from abroad are looking to fill professional (48%) or skilled trade (8%) vacancies; 19% are filling manual vacancies, and less than 5% are seeking to recruit to unskilled vacancies.

Dr John Philpott, Chief Economist at the CIPD, said that the findings emphasised the care the government will need to take in managing migration.

"Any efforts to improve the management of the migration system must take great care to ensure that the legitimate needs of employers are met, while also securing the wider interests of the economy and society'" he said.

"There is a false impression that migrant workers are predominantly being shipped in to fill low skill, low wage jobs, but the reality is that it is professional and high skill vacancies that are fuelling the international search for labour," Philpott added. "

"However, if the system is set too rigidly there is a danger that employers will find themselves falling behind international competitors due to a shortage of the people needed to deliver business growth. Policy makers must make sure that they do not allow efforts to address public concerns about migration to result in legislation that will damage economic growth."