Poll finds hiring needs at highest levels for seven years

The number of applicants for UK jobs from the EU had ‘dropped off a cliff edge’, according to a new poll of industry employers, causing a further threat to NHS and other public sector workforces.

Recruitment firm ManpowerGroup conducted the poll of 2,102 employers across nine different industry sectors, finding that hiring intentions in the public sector were at the highest level since 2011, predominantly because of a sharp slowdown in EU migrant workers coming to Britain.

Although Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to increase spending on the NHS by £20 billion by 2024, the staff shortages that have plagued the health service in recent years appear to have worsened. In November, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that the number of EU workers joining the NHS fell by 17.6 per cent in the 12 months since the EU referendum, while the number leaving the service increased by 15.3 per cent.

James Hick, the managing director of ManpowerGroup, said: “You can continue to spend [as] much money as you like but if people aren’t there willing to work then there’s going to be a difficult situation. One thing that will stem that is being competitive in pay, and of course the NHS is handcuffed by pay structures.”