More than 1,000 people applied for one role at a brewery as job shortages prompted by the coronavirus pandemic leave thousands of Brits looking for work.
Northern Monk Brewing Company in Leeds said hundreds of people made redundant or on furlough applied for the role.
Job vacancies are down by 59 per cent compared with last summer, with some areas down 80 per cent, according to data from job website Adzuna.
Tony Wilson, of the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), said although there were signs of improvement, firms could still freeze recruitment and cut hours – meaning even people who have retained their jobs will be looking for extra work and adding to the competition for limited vacancies.
Northern Monk Brewing Company in Leeds had 1,021 applications for one packing vacancy.
HR manager Sophie Lennon told the BBC: "When we posted the job within the first day we had a really high number of applicants. We've never seen that before.
"We advertised the job for three weeks and at the end of that time we'd had 1,021 applicants for the job which is way above what we'd usually see."
She said she had spoken to both people who had been made redundant and people on furlough who were unsure if they would be brought back. "It's definitely a mix of both."
Nearly 1.7 million vacancies were listed across the UK between April and July. May was the worst month for vacancies in more than two years.
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Some 361,570 jobs were posted in May, while the country was still in full Covid-19 lockdown. This rose to 449,484 in July as some places reopened with social distancing.
Vacancies in the charity and voluntary sector are have decreased by more than 90 per cent. Just over 2,000 adverts were posted between April and July 2020, compared with more than 25,500 in the same months last year.
Mr Wilson, director of the IES, said: "Vacancies have fallen everywhere. It's been noticeable in ex-industrial areas, deprived cities and coastal towns.
"There was a pretty significant improvement between June and July, but it's still a long way below February. While there will be a rise in redundancy and unemployment, where employers can they will try to reduce hours instead of losing people altogether.
"People will still be in work, but they will be earning less and working fewer hours."
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said although there were still many fewer jobs recorded in July than last year, he was still optimistic about the increase from June.
"It's nice to see a small, month-on-month uptick across most sectors and locations," he said. "Let's hope this is the start of the jobs bounce back."
He said there had been a rise in vacancies for logistics and warehouse jobs, mostly from employers like Amazon, Deliveroo and DPD.
The number of people in work in the UK decreased by 220,000 between April and June, the Office for National Statistics said.