A FACTORY based in a high unemployment area is so desperate for staff that it is distributing 9,000 recruitment leaflets.

SK Chilled Foods need to fill 20 vacancies at their site in Skelton and despite more than 300 jobs being lost from three factories on Skelton Industrial Estate this year, the company is unable to fill the posts.

Unemployment in East Cleveland is nearly six per cent.

In Skelton, jobs have been lost at shoe factory Texon UK, workwear rental firm Hirelin and Rainbow Corporatewear textile company.

In April Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and the Tees Valley Development Company handed over a £50,000 cheque to the former Industrie Ilpea Spa rubber seals and mouldings factory in Skelton to save hundreds of jobs.

Richard Harper, manufacturing director at SK Foods, said that the need to find local employees was a priority and instead of relying on the local JobCentre the firm has launched its own recruitment drive.

Mr Harper said: "We were not getting enough people from the Skelton area. We were having to bus people in from Middlesbrough. But we would like to make it more of a community here by employing people who live close to the site."

Leaflets will be dropped through letterboxes in Skelton this week and posters are being displayed in pubs, clubs and bars.

Most of the 200 employees at the Skelton branch make spring rolls and other snacks, and the current vacancies are in the spring roll department.

The company employs 750 people at its three sites at Skelton, South Bank and Riverside in Middlesbrough.

Mr Harper said: "Our staff turnover has gone down since we increased salary remuneration last year and brought our salaries in line with the minimum wage." Employees can earn between £4.20 and £4.50 an hour.