JCB have announced they have started a fresh recruitment drive for 500 new shop floor employees as demand for its machinery soars.

The Backhoe Loader production line at JCB's World HQ in Staffordshire

The company is setting on the additional agency employees at its 11 plants in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Wrexham - on top of the 850 shop floor jobs already created so far in 2021.

JCB is also offering an additional 300 agency employees permanent contracts - which will bring the total number of agency shop floor employees given permanent jobs this year to 1,000.

The company says the moves follow record demand for their construction and agricultural products, with most new machines already sold out until next year. Pay for shop floor roles has also risen once already this year to £11.35 an hour.

JCB CEO Graeme Macdonald said, “The recovery continues to gather momentum and we have tens of thousands of new machine orders sitting on our books stretching well into next year. We have never seen anything like this in the 75-year history of JCB."