After the employment chief of manufacturing industry body EEF described the process of hiring non-EU technical workers like “pulling teeth” last week, the UK resourcing manager of one oil & gas services firm tells Recruiter that the situation is not that desperate.

Last week, EEF head of employment Tim Thomas told The Daily Telegraph: “If skilled workers aren’t from the EU, recruiting them into the UK is like pulling teeth. There’s a lot of bureaucracy involved and for employers, it’s extremely difficult to navigate.”

But Aker Solutions’ resourcing manager Greg Findlay tells Recruiter that while the process “could always improve”, in actual fact “the reality is it’s not preventing us from recruiting who we need”.

“We’ve been very successful in employing the people we need to,” he added.

Findlay also tells Recruiter that the firm would do most of its recruitment from within the UK and the EU, saying: “There is no doubt that it’s obviously easier to take people on from in the UK or in the EU.”

Also speaking to Recruiter, one recruiter says that one of the main issues he has heard from clients in recent months is the restrictions on the number of Tier 1 visas available for what the UK Border Agency terms ‘high-value migrants’ to extend their stay in the UK.

With the potential changes to the regulations laid out in parliament last week, head of GCS Technology Chris Devonshire GCS says that through 2013 the Tier 1 situation is “going to have quite a big impact, I would say”.

• Findlay also spoke to Recruiter about Aker’s recruitment of ex-armed forces personnel, for more on which see February’s edition of the magazine, out next week.