The initiative, which was announced by work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, includes a major new advertising campaign encouraging employers struggling with staffing shortages to tap into the specialist services and solutions their local Jobcentre can offer.

Stride said: ‘Reaching over 90% of business and recruitment decision makers, our campaign will focus squarely on those sectors where recruitment is a challenge, especially from significant reductions in migration. 

‘It will bring home all the ways Jobcentres can support employers – whether that's help with running a recruitment campaign or attending one of the thousands of job fairs we hold across the country.'

Alongside the campaign, the DWP is leading a new cross-Government ministerial group set up to develop new recruitment schemes in industries facing staffing shortages.

The taskforce will seek to emulate ‘HGV driver shortage style' initiatives, which helped to fill vacancies in the sector through solutions developed with employers, including targeted skills ‘bootcamps', Jobcentre training schemes and cutting red tape holding back domestic recruitment.

The expert group, including Home Office and Treasury ministers, will work directly with employers to implement changes designed to unlock the domestic labour supply and boost skills among UK jobseekers, targeting extra help to key sectors, including hospitality, care, construction and manufacturing.

UNISON dismissed the initiative as a 'desperate attempt to distract voters from government care failings'.

UNISON head of social care Gavin Edwards said a fair pay agreement and a national care service was the only way to fix the recruitment crisis.