Labour also dismissed the proposals as a “talking shop” that would not deal with the scale of the problem.
The plans, overseen by a new ministerial taskforce headed by Mr Stride, come ahead of official net migration statistics set to be published on Thursday.
Net migration in the UK – the difference between the number of people coming and those leaving – hit a record high of 745,000 in 2022.
Since then, the government has announced a set of measures aimed at significantly cutting the number of people entering Britain.
These include drastically hiking the salary threshold for skilled workers to £38,700 and reforms to make it harder for Britons earning under the national average to bring over foreign spouses.
Mr Stride acknowledged the new rules, which aim to reduce the number of people arriving in Britain by 300,000, present a “recruitment challenge” for employers.
He insisted the government was building a new economic model “based on British talent”.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Alison McGovern accused the government of “running down our skills and training system”.
She said: “We now have record levels of net migration. They should be putting in place proper plans to tackle worker shortages and adopting Labour’s plans to connect the immigration system to skills.”
Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman, Wendy Chamberlain, said: “In many ways this is an admission that the Conservatives have no plan to tackle the biggest reason that people are unable to work, which is that NHS waiting lists are through the roof.
“Thousands are struggling to access the healthcare they need, meaning people are unable to go back to work.
“We will only get the economy back fighting fit by fixing the health crisis,” she added.
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