Continuation of the Worker Registration Scheme

On 24 April the Government informed the European Commission that the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) will continue beyond 1 May 2006.

This means that nationals of the following countries who joined the European Union in May 2004 will need to continue to register on the WRS for the first 12 months of employment if they wish to work in the UK: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Accession 2003 each member state of the European Union (EU) was permitted to apply national measures to restrict access to their labour markets to nationals of eight of the countries joining the EU.
The Government established the WRS, which came into effect 1 May 2004, under the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2004. The Scheme has enabled the Government to monitor the impact on the UK labour market of nationals from the new member states.

It is important that the Government should continue to be able to monitor the numbers of nationals of the new Member States coming here to work and their impact on the labour market. The need for the Scheme will, however, continue to be kept under review.