Horticulture and agriculture businesses, who often rely on migrant workers from the EU, are struggling to fill posts

Britain may be running out of workers, according to some of the UK’s biggest business groups, with recruiters reporting that they face growing difficulties with hiring.

There has been a steady drop in the UK’s unemployment rate to a 42-year low of 4.3 per cent, squeezing the number of available candidates at a time when EU migrant workers are choosing to leave Britain.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation said this week that concerns among employers about the availability of skilled workers were rising, especially for the construction, engineering and health and social care sectors. These sectors have traditionally had “a high dependency on non-UK nationals in the workforce”, it said.

At the same time, the CBI, Britain’s biggest business lobby, reported that 75 per cent