An editor now working as a waitress. An insurance accounts manager now working as a “picker and packer” in a warehouse. An accountant now working as a chef. A civil servant now working as a security guard. What do these people have in common?
They are all Hongkongers with British national overseas status, of whom more than 150,000 have come to the UK since a special visa route was opened up in 2021. This is a well-qualified group: a 2023 survey by think-tank British Future found they were more highly educated than the average person in both Hong Kong and the UK.
In spite of that, many have had to start at the bottom.
This is a familiar story. Many newly-arrived migrants with few qualifications will begin in low-paid roles which typically have lower barriers to entry. But even people with higher skills can begin on the bottom rungs of the ladder, perhaps because of language barriers or the need to start earning quickly.
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The big question is: what happens next? Do migrants with low levels of education manage to acquire more skills over time and climb the pay ladder? And do people who are overqualified quickly scramble back up to where they ought to be?
The answer clearly matters for migrants themselves, but there are economic considerations too. As Alan Manning, professor at the London School of Economics, points out, much of the debate about whether recently arrived migrants in low-paid roles are “a fiscal burden or a fiscal asset” comes down to “whether they’re going to continue to earn £25,000 (€28,400) a year longer-term, or move up”. As a result, “this whole issue of progression is really important”.
A vast new study by the OECD offers some good and bad news. The research investigates the earnings of immigrants entering the labour market from the early 2000s to 2015 across 15 OECD countries.
Unsurprisingly, they were more likely to work in lower-paying occupations, in lower-paying sectors and in lower-paying companies when they first arrived. They earned a lot less than native-born workers of the same age and sex. The earnings gap ranged from about 28 per cent in Denmark, France and Portugal to 45 per cent in Italy.
The good news is that the gap did reduce over time: by about one-third in the first five years in the host country, and by about half in the first 10 years. The immigrants worked longer hours and got pay rises within firms. They also moved to better, larger, higher-paying companies.
The bad news is they didn’t close the gap by moving to higher-paying occupations – at least in the seven countries for which occupational data was available. This suggests, the researchers conclude, that “occupational segregation is highly persistent”.
The OECD study didn’t include the UK. But separate research has found that migrants from the “A12” countries that joined the EU after 2004 were much more likely than native UK workers to work in low-paying occupations – and slow to move up over time.
Why might some people get stuck in these low-paying roles? For the overqualified, it can be hard to get employers to recognise your qualifications and to develop fluent enough language skills to do your previous profession in a new country. For the lower-skilled, says Heather Rolfe, director of research at British Future, many of these sectors “are ones that don’t really do a lot of training: construction, retail, factories, warehouses”.
When you’re working long hours and antisocial shifts, finding the energy and money to train in your free time for a career change can be tough.
The picture is not uniform, though. The study on people from the A12 countries found much better rates of progression among other groups of migrants to the UK over the same time period. More recent pay data suggests earning progression among the large cohorts of non-EU migrants between 2021 and 2023 appears faster than for those who arrived pre-pandemic.
Policies to fast-track the recognition of qualifications and provide higher-level language courses would help. As Jean-Christophe Dumont at the OECD told me, the key is to invest in people “as soon as possible – don’t wait five, 10 years”.
People pay a lot of attention to the jobs immigrants do when they arrive. But that is only half the question. To let people get stuck in jobs that don’t use their potential is a waste – not just for them, but for the economy as a whole. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
