diff --git a/changes/ticket40713 b/changes/ticket40713
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..eaddfd30d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changes/ticket40713
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+  o Minor feature (cpuworker):
+    - Always use the number of threads for our CPU worker pool to the number of
+      core available but cap it to a minimum of 2 in case of a single core.
+      Fixes bug 40713; bugfix on 0.3.5.1-alpha.
diff --git a/src/core/mainloop/cpuworker.c b/src/core/mainloop/cpuworker.c
index 39d4899075..9ad8939e4d 100644
--- a/src/core/mainloop/cpuworker.c
+++ b/src/core/mainloop/cpuworker.c
@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ cpu_init(void)
       always make sure we have at least two threads, so that there will be at
       least one thread of each kind.
     */
-    const int n_threads = get_num_cpus(get_options()) + 1;
+    const int n_threads = MAX(get_num_cpus(get_options()), 2);
     threadpool = threadpool_new(n_threads,
                                 replyqueue,
                                 worker_state_new,