Employers will be forced to publicise skilled job vacancies on the Jobcentre Plus network before advertising them abroad. Home secretary Jacqui Smith said British people will have the “first crack of the whip” of jobs classified under Tier 2, which includes primary school teachers, construction jobs, some nursing categories and hotel managers.

“When it comes to immigration, in difficult economic times I believe we need a tough system that offers British workers the first crack of the whip for British jobs,” said Smith.

“That’s why I’ll be using the flexibility that the points-based system allows to force employers to offer British jobs through Job Centre Plus before recruiting foreign workers,” she added. Currently, employers must advertise a job nationally for two weeks before looking for workers from overseas. The time limit drops to one week where a salary of more than £40,000 is on offer.

Source: Personnel Today

In my 15 year + experience, I have only advertised via the job centres once or twice, and those experiences have not been ideal - would this requirement only aggreivate and extend a recruitment process that has already been stretched to the max by the fact that by normal/usual channels have not been able to source in the UK already?