Ministers are expected to consult for another year on where to set the post-Brexit salary threshold for skilled immigrants after Theresa May failed to get cabinet approval for her preferred £30,000 level.

Home Office sources indicated on Wednesday morning there would be a lengthy period of consultation, after a cabinet row in which Philip Hammond led opposition to the £30,000 proposal.

The long-awaited white paper on post-Brexit immigration policy, released on Wednesday, notes that the government’s Migration Advisory Committee had recommended retaining the threshold at £30,000. But then continues: “We will engage businesses and employers as to what salary threshold should be set.”

The chancellor and other ministers, such as the business secretary, Greg Clark, successfully raised concerns that setting the threshold at £30,000 would severely restrict the NHS, the wider public sector and businesses from recruiting staff after Brexit.

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May had wanted to implement the higher threshold immediately but was defeated after a cabinet standoff that ran through Tuesday afternoon and came close to delaying the publication of the white paper.

The policy is due to be implemented at the end of the post-Brexit transition period, at the beginning of 2021. The long consultation means businesses could have no more than a year to adapt once the threshold is set.

The threshold is at the centre of the new system, which will apply to EU and non-EU immigrants equally. Workers will be allowed to enter the country if they have a UK job that pays above the threshold. There will be no cap on immigration numbers.

There are no plans to date for immigration under a no-deal Brexit, but it is understood the Home Office will set this out shortly. It is not expected to include an immediate clampdown on free movement from the end of March 2019; an unspecified interim period will be required because of the complexity of introducing a new system.

The white paper contains an additional proposal to try to alleviate concerns about the new system: a transitional measure, to run for an initial five years, for low-skilled workers earning less than the threshold. This would allow people with lower paid jobs to come to the UK for a maximum of 12 months, with a cooling off period of a further 12 months to prevent people settling in the UK as a result.

An additional “small scale” scheme for fruit pickers and other seasonal agricultural workers will be trialled in 2019, but no other sectors of the economy would be allowed special treatment, the white paper says.

It noted that sectors such as construction and social care were particularly vulnerable. The temporary route would only be available to residents of “low risk” countries, likely to be EU member states and some Commonwealth countries, such as Australia.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Sajid Javid said the £30,000 threshold would be “discussed further”, despite previous reports that it would be a central plank of the white paper.

“It is … important to listen to business and find the right threshold. So we will be setting out today, we shall consult further on whether it is £30,000 or thereabouts.”

The white paper only refers indirectly to May’s long-held target of reducing annual net migration to the tens of thousands. It says the government is still committed to “reduce annual net migration to sustainable levels as set out in the Conservative party manifesto”.

In his interview, Javid refused to repeat May’s 2017 election manifesto pledge to bring net migration down to “tens of thousands”.

When asked directly if the target of “tens of thousands” had been abandoned, Javid said: “What was clear from the manifesto was our commitment to bring net migration down.”

The goal of cutting net migration – the difference between the annual number of people arriving in the UK versus the number leaving – was first set by David Cameron’s coalition government in 2010. The target has never been met, with annual net migration standing at about 244,000.