UK companies are hiring people based abroad to take on remote jobs, one of the country’s top recruiters has revealed.

Robert Walters – founder of the £ 500million listed recruiting firm that bears his name – said some companies are considering switching to permanent homework to cut costs and expand their talent pools.

His company’s chief executive, Toby Fowlston, told the Mail on Sunday that a British tech company had embarked on a wave of hiring in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

He said: “Employers know there is real wage inflation in the UK. They think, “If we are working entirely remotely, we should tap into cheaper markets where skills are just as high.” ”

Fowlston said Poland and South Africa are also attracting interest from UK businesses. “In South Africa you have 35 percent unemployment,” he said. “The rand against the pound is another attraction.

“The reality is that there are some amazingly good people overseas who can do a lot of these jobs. The question then becomes how governments react to this.

Official statistics last week showed UK job vacancies hit a record 935,000 in July. In addition to a shortage of servers and truck drivers, employers in industries such as technology and the legal sector are looking to hire more staff. Walters said: “The shortage is starting to raise all kinds of questions about hybrid work and where you start looking for your staff.”

Some companies have told staff they can work from home indefinitely, while others are trying to get more people back to the office.

When asked if hiring overseas-based homeworkers posed a threat to UK staff, Walters replied: “I wouldn’t say it’s a threat. It’s an opportunity for people. to actually assess what skills they need and where a job needs to be physically done.

Earlier this year, the Tony Blair Institute warned that the pandemic had left nearly six million jobs – in sectors such as finance, manufacturing and communications – at risk of being displaced overseas. He said companies can “only employ the core staff needed for collaboration and face-to-face decision making, while outsourcing and offshoring those who are not.”

Fowlston said many employers are weighing whether to let staff work overseas for periods of time as “digital nomads” and whether to pay them based on local wages.

Some economists believe that the end of the holiday next month will help fill the vacancies. Others expect unemployment to rise. Unemployment was 4.7% in the three months to June, according to the Office for National Statistics, well below expectations at the start of the pandemic.

Fowlston said: “The job market is catching up with the strong rebound in global economies. It is as if a catapult has been pulled out and dropped.

Walters said jobs in specialized fields such as cybersecurity or in niche legal roles pay up to 25% more than a year ago.

Rival recruiter Hays is expected to release bullish annual results next week. He benefited from a 39 percent increase in his net fees in the last three months of his fiscal year.