KPMG has withdrawn all visa-sponsored job offers granted to foreign graduates in the UK.
The global accountancy firm says the move is as a result of the UK’s decision to raise the minimum salary threshold for skilled worker sponsorship.
KPMG is one of the “Big Four Firms” including PwC, EY, and Deloitte which currenly marshal the accountancy industry and are globally recognised as employers of foreign talents, especially graduates.
According to the firm, the new visa regulation has “unfortunately impacted some of our graduate programmes that were previously eligible for sponsorship under the skilled worker visa category.”
The UK government increased the minimum salary threshold for skilled workers by 48 percent to £38,700 earlier this month, and to £30,960 for people under the age of 26, following an initial announcement in January.
Graduates who had their certificate of sponsorship revoked can request to transfer to a different programme as long as applications were still open and if the role is eligible for sponsorship.
KPMG reported that it hired up to 1,399 graduates and apprentices in the 2023 fiscal year, 378 more than the previous year.
The firm will now seek to UK graduates and people already eligible to work in Britain to fill its labour shortages.
