Care worker Geraldyn Adem was baffled to arrive in the UK on a visa specifically designed to plug a staffing shortage only to be told there was no work for her to do.

“I was really scared at first,” said Adem, 49, who arrived from Nigeria in March 2023. “I was like, ‘What is this? I came here to work, and to support the sector. Now, there is no work.’”

After a year of being told by her employer to “come back tomorrow” for a shift, Adem found out that her employer’s licence to sponsor overseas workers had been revoked by the Government.

She is among tens of thousands of overseas care workers affected by a government crackdown on unscrupulous employers, sometimes over abuse or exploitation of staff.

‘Find a job in 60 days – or leave’

Adem – like the other workers who uprooted their lives to come to the UK – was given just 60 days to find a new care employer to sponsor her, or leave the country.

“I was in a very uncertain position. I thought, how can I survive in this place? I don’t even know anybody, I just came in with a work visa,” she said.

In the last year alone, the Government has revoked 4,403 skilled worker visa sponsor licences, which allow companies to hire overseas workers in industries identifiedas suffering a skills shortage.

This is more than in any 12-month period since Brexit, and includes 872 in the health and social care sector – the highest of any industry.

It is not clear how many care workers have been affected overall, but the Government has estimated that 40,000 had been impacted as of May 2025, when only 470 licences had been revoked.

Andy Burnham has made social care reform one of his key pledges, promising a National Care Service shortly after he took office in July – but filling widespread staffing shortages will be a key consideration.

Despite a pool of tens of thousands of care workers, known as “displaced workers” looking for employment, only three per cent have been able to secure roles, according to the Works Right Centre charity.

This is because of the high upfront cost of sponsoring these staff, and a mismatch between skills and vacancies.

‘I begged to be a delivery driver’

Jasmine (who preferred not to give her real name because of her immigration status), 51, is still waiting to find a new employer after her sponsor’s licence was revoked in May 2024.

She arrived in Britain a year earlier to find the company that had brought her over did not have a job as promised.

“We saw hell,” she said. “I was looking everywhere for a job, a place to stay. I went to Domino’s, I begged them to be a delivery driver until my international driving licence expired after the first year.”

She applied to the Home Office for fee waivers to buy herself more time to stay in the country – but her visa finally expired in July.

“I’m applying to care homes now and they are not giving out sponsorship,” Jasmine said. She says she has applied to jobs “anywhere” in the hopes of getting sponsored.

‘It pushes people into destitution’

Jasmine’s uncertain visa status has also left her open to exploitation, with cowboy care companies offering her work off the books.

“People are trying to victimise us, the people who have already been victimised,” she said.

While desperately searching for sponsorship, she was given the number of someone who could apparently secure her a visa without work – but the cost would be £16,000.

She has also found that most sponsored jobs require her to be able to drive and own a car. But without money coming in, she cannot afford to obtain a British licence.

Lucy Walker, an employability advisor at Action Foundation, which helps displaced care workers find new sponsors, said she had seen people living in “destitution” while they looked for work as they had no recourse to public funds.

“It pushes people into serious financial difficulties and debt, which affects landlords, affects communities… people can’t afford their basic needs. Their children are suffering immensely,” Walker added.

“I’ve been getting money from home to survive,” said Jasmine, who has three children with her in the UK. “Imagine, me, that should be sending money home, calling my younger brother to send money.”

There are 96,000 vacancies in the adult social care sector on any given day in England, charity Skills for Care estimates. This is three times higher than in the wider economy and the highest of any UK industry.

Skills for Care also predicts the number of workers needed in the sector will rise by a third to 410,000 by 2040.

However, as routes for overseas workers are cut, the number of British people doing the job has also fallen by 40,000 in the last year. Overseas staff now make up one third of the workforce.

The Government closed its care worker visa route to new applicants last year as part of a migration crackdown, meaning employers can only recruit those already living in the UK.

For a care employer who is not already a registered sponsor with the Home Office, it costs almost £4,000 to obtain a licence and sponsor someone for three years, and nearly £2,000 for a small provider.

This has to be paid upfront before any trial or probation period.

Wendy Adams, workforce lead at North East Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, said the costs were “prohibitive”, adding: “A displaced worker does not have a right to work until they are sponsored, and so employers must take a risk based on interview. There is no option to employ them for a period before sponsoring them.”

Employers can still sponsor people already in the UK through different visa routes, such as students, until July 2028. Adams said this was favoured by many employers because they can try out workers before committing to sponsorship.

The Government initially provided regional hubs with funding to support displaced workers into sponsorship, but their cash was cut by 40 per cent this year, to £7.5m.

North East and North Cumbria Displaced Workers Hub told The i Paper that this meant it was no longer able cover the full cost of sponsorship for those seeking employment.

Ministers announced last week that victims of modern slavery, which would include some displaced care workers, would now be able to find work in any sector.

However, Walker said this solution “misses the problem entirely. People came here to work in care, they want to work in care.”

‘Social care reform requires a workforce to deliver it’

Jasmine believes the Government should be making it easier for displaced workers to find new jobs. “[Rogue employers] made us suffer like this, and what was it for? It’s very, very unfair,” she said, pointing out that the health and care visa scheme was launched to plug the UK’s workforce gap.

Displaced worker hubs have not had any funding confirmed beyond March next year. Adams said she worried about the consequences of this both for workers and the social care sector.

‘The workers we have already placed will provide almost two million care hours over the next three years of their sponsorship,” she said. “Without this, social care providers would be struggling to find the workers to deliver this care to people who need it.”

In Scotland, First Minister John Sweeney recently announced a further £500,000 to cover employers’ sponsorship costs to try to “mitigate” the impact of closing the visa route and revoking licences.

He said: “The Prime Minister has spoken about reforming social care services, but meaningful reform requires a workforce to deliver it. I urge him to reconsider and to reverse the harm done by the UK Government over the past two years.”

The Home Office was approached for comment.

Adem managed to find a new sponsor with the help of a charity a year after her employer’s licence was cancelled.

However, she thinks ministers should replace employer-tied sponsorship with a sector-wide model, where staff can move freely between care employers while retaining their visa.

“We’ve left our country. We’ve come here to work with our own hearts,” she said.

“The Government should make sure that for everybody that is coming in as an immigrant to work, the work is there – and not just the work, the hours.”