Food manufacturing and retailing are among the top industries in the Toronto economy, with 105,000 food manufacturing workers employed in Ontario—more than any other manufacturing sector—and nearly 450,000 retail workers in the Toronto area, with both industries continuing to grow.

Despite growth and widespread job openings, companies face significant challenges with hiring and worker shortages. In fact, an estimated 25,000 Torontofood manufacturing jobs are estimated to go unfilled by 2025 if the current worker shortage continues. Additionally, retail job vacancies in Ontario increased from 4.8% to 5.5% between 2021 and 2022.

Many of the roles in this sector are for hourly workers. And the longer jobs are open, the more productivity is disrupted, which can prevent companies from effectively supporting customers and achieving business goals. Below, we’ve outlined some tips to improve hourly hiring and quickly fill open roles with qualified candidates at your food manufacturing or retail business.

1. Support easy and frictionless job applications

Many workers in this space may browse new jobs on their phones during a break from the retail or food manufacturing floor. If your business doesn’t accept applications from mobile devices, you risk frustrating and turning away potential applicants. In fact, mobile job applications surpassed desktop for the first time in 2020 and nearly 70% of job applications were submitted on a mobile device in 2021.

Job seekers today expect the application process to be just as seamless as other interactions they have online, such as ordering an Uber or completing a one-click purchase on Amazon. With AppyHere, applications are optimized for mobile devices and candidates can apply within a matter of minutes by answering a few pre-screening questions—and without requiring a resume, which many hourly candidates don’t have.

2. Keep candidates engaged

In today’s competitive job market, job seekers are likely to pursue other opportunities if your hiring process is too time consuming or complicated. They may even abandon your hiring process altogether without warning, also known as candidate ghosting.

Ahead of the 2022 holiday season, retail hiring managers in Canada reported an increase in candidate ghosting, including one Toronto store manager who shared that six in-person interviews were scheduled for one day and not a single candidate showed. Job seekers need to take a lot of time out of their day to schedule, travel to and complete an in-person interview. To avoid ghosting, simplify the process and complete as much as possible—if not the entire process—virtually.

AppyHere is a hiring solution that is specifically designed with hourly job seekers in mind. The app enables candidates to apply for jobs in less than two minutes, and your team can extend offers in as little as 40 minutes. Additionally, to minimize candidate ghosting during the interview process, AppyHere helps your team avoid chasing down candidates and scheduling interviews manually. Simple and automated interview scheduling is available for in-person, phone, video, and group interviews.

3. Speed up hiring

Recent research shows that recruiting and retaining workers—from the unskilled entry-level worker through experienced and highly skilled staff—is a constant challenge for the Toronto food and beverage manufacturing sector. And one of the key reasons for this is ineffective human resources management. Another report found that increased competition for talent and a lack of rapid hiring processes are key contributors to this talent shortage.

In addition to making the hiring process easier and more engaging for candidates, AppyHere helps simplify and automate hiring steps, making your hiring managers and team more efficient. Intelligent hyper-automation pre-screens and ranks candidates, and automatically schedules interviews with qualified candidates. Background checks can also be completed within 15 minutes, rather than several business days.

AppyHere also features a dashboard with real-time market analytics and a wealth of data and actionable insights to continuously improve every step of the hiring process.

Automated, efficient hiring can help your team hire the best hourly candidates quickly—before they receive competing job offers—and be better equipped to overcome challenges related to worker shortages in the sector.

Unlike other solutions that offer hiring processes much too complicated for hourly hiring, top recruiting teams across industries trust AppyHere. to fill all of their hourly positions. We’re here to help your Toronto-based food manufacturing or retail business support an engaging candidate experience and streamline your hiring process. Learn more about how AppyHere can be your complete solution for quick and efficient hourly hiring—schedule a demo today.