By Ted Peskett

Copyright walesonline

Migrant care workers in Cardiff faced threats from employers, discrimination and unfair work practices, according to a city council official. Cardiff Council’s operational manager for strategy, quality and commissioning, Angela Bourges, raised issues being faced in the care sector at a Cardiff Council community and adult services scrutiny committee meeting on Monday, September 15. Ms Bourges said unfair work practices are being found in a small number of providers, but where it is detected, the local authority will monitor what’s going on. The council officer also said Cardiff Council is worried the city could face a care worker shortage when new national policies on immigration are implemented. Never miss a Cardiff story and sign up to our newsletter here . Ms Bourges said: “Some migrant care workers have been subjected to unfair work practice. “Some of that has been discriminatory in terms of them feeling that they get less desirable shifts for example. “Some of it is about the expectations that employers might place on them and might threaten them with the fact that if they don’t do additional hours they might lose their sponsorship arrangements. “Because of the vulnerability of this cohort of workers, because they are on sponsorship and because they made their home in our country, many of them don’t have family or friends to support them with things like childcare arrangements for example.” Sponsored care workers are international recruits who come to the UK to work in social care roles under a visa sponsorship, which is often provided through the health and care worker visa. Ms Bourges added: “We are very much aware that although some of what they experience isn’t a particular feature of the migrant care workforce, some of it is very much the fact that they are sponsored and some employers will use that as a threat to get them to do certain things. “We are very mindful that this is only a small number of providers, but where we find out that that is the case then we try and very discreetly go in and do monitoring and look at payslips… look at rotas and try and unpick what’s happening. “Then we can work with providers and we try to do that in a very supportive way to help them understand about fair work practice and what we expect as commissioners.” Earlier this year, the UK Government announced that it planned to bring overseas recruitment of care workers to an end. From July 2025, the UK immigration route for care workers closed to new applications from overseas, which means employers can no longer sponsor new care workers from abroad. In-country applications, including from other visa routes, will continue to be allowed for overseas care workers until 2028. The government’s strategy is aimed at addressing exploitation of overseas workers, some of whom are being subjected to slavery and unethical recruitment practices. However, many care agencies across the UK and in Cardiff are heavily reliant on migrant care workers. Ms Bourges told Cardiff Council’s community and adult services scrutiny committee that nearly 100% of the workforce in some agencies in Cardiff are carers who are sponsored. The council official said that Cardiff is currently “blessed” in that it doesn’t have people waiting for care. However, this is “significantly attributed” to migrant care workers. Council data on the domiciliary care sector in Cardiff shows that the percentage of agencies using the sponsorship scheme has gone up from 48% in 2024 to 56% in 2025. Efforts are ongoing to recruit more people in the care sector. However, Ms Bourges said it is “incredibly difficult to recruit care workers from the UK” and that the numbers of UK nationals coming through is “very low indeed”. She added: “If there was a reduction in our migrant care worker workforce, that could obviously lead to disruption in peoples’ care.”