Professionals who once earned as much as £40,000 a year were among those queueing desperately for seasonal work at a Staffordshire theme park.

Drayton Manor theme park and zoo was flooded with applications after organising a recruitment day earlier this month to fill positions for fork-lift truck drivers and ride assistants ahead of its 2009 season.

Just two years ago the company struggled to recruit enough people to fill its 300 seasonal roles, but this year staff had to close the doors five and a half hours earlier than planned as jobseekers queued down the drive at the theme park near Tamworth. It has received 2,000 applications for work this season.

Growing numbers of out-of-work professionals have been applying for unskilled work in a desperate bid to find a job.

Drayton Manor’s managing director Colin Bryan said staff were unable to process all of the paperwork in one day.

“When you look at some of the applications, it is heart breaking,” he said.

“People who had jobs such as insurance managers earning more than £40,000 a year are applying to work here because they just want to get a job.

“We saw a sharp rise in applications last year, but an even bigger increase this year. We’re still going through them, and if I could I would employ them all because the situation is heart breaking.”

l Have you left a highly-paid professional career to take on an unskilled job? Contact us on 01902 319410 or email newsdesk@expressandstar.co.uk