Labour lets hundreds of vape shops, newsagents and barber shops hire migrants while Britain's youths go jobless

More than 140,000 firms across the country currently hold licences to hire overseas workers.

A searchable Home Office list names all of those companies.

In it, at least 400 pizza restaurants have been granted a licence - and that figure only accounts for companies with "pizza" in their name.

Seventy-nine named vape shops are also allowed to hire migrants, as first reported by The Procurement Files, while more than 90 newsagents and 100 barbers can do the same.

Countless more, not with the words "vape", "newsagent" or "barber" in their names, are also free to hire from overseas.

Last year, the National Audit Office admitted the Home Office lacked the means to stop exploitation of the route - which has seen more than 300,000 applications in the last five years.

Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, has called for a mass clampdown as a result.

"The register of sponsors has exploded in size since 2019," he told GB News.

"Thousands of low-grade companies have effective control of Britain's border policy, with minimal oversight from the Home Office.

"Dingy kebab and vape shops are given carte blanche to import migrants that are of no value to the country and are certainly not skilled in any sense of the word.

"It is time to end the chaos by closing the register and moving to a system of much tighter control."

While overseas workers snap up vacancies once filled by students and new starters, a horror report yesterday showed how more than one million of Britain's young people are not in work, training nor education.

Further research shows that young migrants are taking roles which would have otherwise gone to young Britons.

Non-EU arrivals have snapped up three times as many jobs as young Britons since 2020, with 27 hired for every one British young person.

"Mass migration is making life almost impossible for those who want to work hard and build a life," Tory MP Katie Lam said after those figures came to light.

Though Alan Milburn, behind yesterday's "lost generation" report, said there was "no evidence" of a link between migration and joblessness among young people.

So far, the Government has pledged to create 300,000 new work experience and training placements from construction to hospitality for young people in the next three years.

These include Manchester and Gatwick airports, as well as in health and social care - and the Government has vowed placements will reach young people across the country.

Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (Swaps) will also make up that number - these are Government-funded programmes for jobseekers claiming benefits, offering training, hands-on experience of the workplace and a guaranteed job interview, the DWP said.

A Home Office spokesman previously said on the issue of skilled worker visas: "Sponsoring organisations must meet strict duties and be able to offer genuine vacancies in order to obtain a licence.

"Where a sponsor fails in those duties, or sponsors workers for non-genuine vacancies we will take action, including revoking their licence."

A Home Office spokesman told GB News: “After record high levels of migration under the previous government, net migration has fallen by 82 per cent.

“Whilst holding a sponsorship license is no guarantee of a visa, we will never tolerate abuse. That is why we have tightened requirements including doubling the length of time employers who commit repeat offences are prevented from sponsoring workers.

“Meanwhile, skilled sponsor revocations are up, more than 100 occupations have been cut from overseas recruitment access and the skilled salary threshold raised.”