Tag: Manufacturing Industry

Editor’s note: The article below is an excerpt from GoodTime’s 2025 Hiring Insights Report. The entire report is available to view online for free here.

In the last year, manufacturing recruiting faced unprecedented challenges as labor shortages and increasing competition for skilled workers disrupted the sector. Manufacturing’s talent acquisition (TA) leaders struggled to fill roles amid high turnover rates, misaligned candidate qualifications, and unmanageable workloads for recruiting teams. These challenges, compounded by slow hiring processes and poor candidate engagement, threatened operational stability in an industry heavily reliant on a consistent workforce. As a result, manufacturing hiring teams were forced to rethink their strategies and find innovative ways to adapt to shifting workforce dynamics.

This section of our 2025 Hiring Insights report explores the key trends, challenges, and strategies that defined manufacturing hiring over the last year and previews how the sector is preparing for 2025. From leveraging automation and AI to streamline workflows to prioritizing personalization and transparency to better engage candidates, manufacturing organizations are beginning to lay the groundwork for a more agile and competitive hiring approach. As TA leaders prepare for another demanding year, the insights and strategies highlighted here provide a roadmap for navigating a complex and evolving labor market.

Executive summary: Key manufacturing recruiting trends

• Percentage of hiring goals achieved: 36%
• Top hiring challenge: Retaining top talent
• 55% of leaders said time-to-hire increased
• 53% said the manufacturing hiring landscape became more competitive
• Top priority in 2025: Improving overall hiring efficiency

Looking back at 2024: Manufacturing recruitment faces mounting hiring challenges

In 2024, manufacturing hiring teams struggled to meet workforce demands, achieving only 36% of their hiring goals—a significant decline from 44% in both 2022 and 2023 and by far, the lowest of all sectors surveyed.

Manufacturing hiring teams faced significant workforce challenges in 2024, with retention, recruiter capacity, and candidate reliability emerging as top concerns. High turnover continued to disrupt staffing stability as workers sought better pay and benefits in other industries, while unmanageable workloads for recruiting teams further strained hiring efforts.

A standout challenge was the increasing frequency of new hire no-shows. Despite receiving offers, candidates often failed to show up for their first day, creating last-minute staffing gaps that delayed productivity and forced teams to restart the hiring process. This trend points to a growing need for stronger candidate engagement and clearer pre-boarding strategies to secure commitment after offer acceptance.

Additionally, the complexities of hybrid work models, evolving hiring policies, and the challenge of balancing a large applicant pool with qualification mismatches further extended hiring cycles. These trends underscore the importance of refining hiring processes to prioritize candidate commitment, recruiter efficiency, and long-term workforce stability in the manufacturing sector.

Hiring bottlenecks compound manufacturing’s labor shortage challenges

In 2024, 55% of manufacturing organizations reported an increase in time-to-hire, emphasizing the sector’s ongoing struggle to fill roles efficiently amidst a widespread labor shortage. Only 2% of respondents reported improvements in hiring speed, while 43% saw no change, surfacing the difficulty of reducing time-to-hire in the sector.

“I think AI will increase the speed of recruitment, but also it’s going to help us to better match skills with how the company wants to hire. It’s a great opportunity for us to increase the productivity of our teams.”
-Nikola Dimov, Global Head of Talent Acquisition, AkzoNobel

Manufacturing hiring teams faced significant bottlenecks in 2024, with communication gaps, limited interviewer availability, and decision-making delays emerging as major disruptors. Poor communication with candidates and delayed responses from hiring managers not only slowed hiring timelines but also risked losing top talent mid-process.

Compounding these issues were capacity constraints, with a limited pool of interviewers and frequent interview cancellations creating scheduling challenges. Additionally, a shortage of qualified candidates and candidate withdrawals further strained hiring efficiency, emphasizing the need for process improvements and stronger engagement strategies to reduce drop-off rates and accelerate decision-making.

The manufacturing hiring landscape showed mixed dynamics in 2024. While 53% of leaders reported that the sector became more competitive due to increased demand for talent, 47% noted the opposite—citing an increase in available talent. This apparent contradiction reflects differences across specialized labor needs, with some roles experiencing a talent surplus and others facing acute shortages.

Recruitment team turnover (42%) and rising dropout rates among candidates (35%) added to the sector’s challenges, complicating efforts to maintain hiring momentum. At the same time, 36% of respondents emphasized the growing importance of creating meaningful candidate relationships, while 35% pointed to the increasing touchpoints required to engage candidates effectively. These changes underscore the evolving expectations of both employers and job seekers in the manufacturing industry.

For hiring leaders, navigating this nuanced landscape requires flexibility and targeted strategies. Whether addressing specialized talent shortages or leveraging available labor pools, organizations must refine their processes to adapt to shifting market conditions and meet both immediate and long-term workforce needs.

How manufacturing addressed hiring challenges in 2024

Manufacturing organizations in 2024 took key steps to address hiring challenges, focusing on personalization, efficiency, and technology upgrades. Many teams emphasized improving the candidate experience, recognizing that stronger early engagement can lead to better offer acceptance and retention.

The focus on faster time-to-hire reflects the urgency to fill high-volume roles while minimizing staffing gaps. At the same time, increasing investments in hiring technology and automation signal a shift away from manual processes, with teams looking to streamline scheduling and reduce recruiter workloads.

These trends highlight a shift toward balancing speed, engagement, and operational efficiency—though challenges like candidate no-shows and drop-off continue to impact hiring outcomes.

Automation and AI adoption have played a growing role in streamlining hiring tasks across manufacturing teams, with the heaviest focus on interview scheduler tools, content generation, and reporting. Many teams have embraced AI-driven tools like chatbots and resume screening to alleviate repetitive tasks, allowing recruiters to focus on more strategic work.

However, adoption remains uneven. While tasks like scheduling saw significant automation, areas like interview analysis continue to lag, suggesting room for improvement in how data-driven insights are used to refine hiring decisions. As AI tools evolve, manufacturers have a clear opportunity to expand their use of automation for both efficiency and smarter decision-making.

Building a fast and simple recruiting process for candidates

In 2024, manufacturing organizations emphasized scheduling efficiency as a key priority to improve the candidate experience and accelerate hiring timelines. Features like the ability for candidates to reschedule interviews automatically through a platform (51%) and automated scheduling at their convenience (50%) topped the list of improvements. These tools not only reduced delays but also enhanced flexibility, making the hiring process more candidate-friendly.

How manufacturing hiring teams measure success

Manufacturing teams are focused on a blend of candidate experience and operational efficiency recruitment metrics to measure hiring success. Candidate interview experience topped the list, underscoring a heightened awareness of how positive interactions during the hiring process impact talent attraction. Similarly, metrics like time-to-hire and offer acceptance rate remain priorities, reflecting the sector’s ongoing pressure to secure candidates quickly in a competitive labor market.

At the same time, continued emphasis on quality of hire and diversity tracking suggests a balanced focus on both long-term employee success and inclusivity. However, lower measurement of early funnel metrics, such as application completion rates, indicates room for improvement in understanding candidate drop-off points and optimizing the early stages of the hiring process.

How manufacturing talent leaders are gearing up for 2025

As manufacturing talent leaders look to 2025, recruitment team turnover (53%) is expected to be the biggest disruptor, further straining the ability to manage candidate flow effectively.

Additionally, 40% anticipate increased competition for talent, while 39% expect higher dropout rates among candidates—further complicating efforts to meet hiring goals. At the same time, 38% believe the hiring landscape will become less competitive due to an increase in available talent, signaling mixed perspectives based on regional or role-specific dynamics.

Looking ahead to 2025, manufacturing leaders anticipate a diverse range of hiring challenges, with hybrid work complexities, shifting company policies, and candidate misrepresentation via AI among the top concerns. The growing presence of hybrid work environments continues to create logistical hurdles for both interview scheduling and role adaptation, while evolving policies signal increased compliance and structural shifts within organizations.

To address these challenges, manufacturing leaders must focus on improving agility, investing in technology, and fostering stronger candidate relationships. These strategies will be critical for overcoming recruitment bottlenecks and maintaining competitiveness in a sector marked by fluctuating labor dynamics

Manufacturing leaders shift strategies in 2025

Manufacturing leaders are prioritizing efficiency and personalization as they refine their hiring strategies for 2025. Improving overall efficiency (40%) tops the list, a strategic response to the unmanageable workloads reported as a top challenge in the previous year. This focus suggests a direct effort to ease recruiter strain by streamlining processes and reducing manual tasks.

Other priorities include increasing personalization throughout the hiring process (36%) and upgrading hiring technology (32%), underscoring the sector’s intent to modernize operations while maintaining a focus on candidate engagement.

Automation and technology will play a central role, with 96% of leaders indicating they are likely or very likely to invest in tools that optimize hiring workflows (31%) and leverage AI for greater efficiency (25%). Improving offer acceptance rates, standardizing processes, and enhancing the candidate experience also remain key areas of focus.

“Where we need to attract a lot of talent, in my case, for manufacturing, AI is a very great tool. We are already seeing costs and labor times going down, and actually the desired outcome is very high. So I’m very excited about AI helping us.”
-Frank Peeters, Manager Talent Acquisition Europe, Lucid Motors

By aligning investments with strategies that prioritize speed, personalization, and engagement, manufacturing organizations are positioning themselves to navigate labor market challenges while building a more resilient talent acquisition approach.

Final thoughts and key takeaways

This year, manufacturing hiring teams faced significant challenges, including persistent labor shortages, extended time-to-hire, and inefficiencies in processes. The sector struggled to achieve hiring goals, with issues like unmanageable workloads for recruitment teams, candidate dropouts, and poor communication creating bottlenecks. Despite these hurdles, manufacturing organizations began leveraging automation, AI, and streamlined workflows to improve hiring outcomes and better engage candidates.

Looking ahead to 2025, manufacturing leaders should prioritize:

• Investing in hiring technology: Upgrading tools to optimize scheduling, streamline workflows, and automate repetitive tasks will be essential for reducing time-to-hire and improving efficiency in a labor-constrained market.
• Enhancing candidate engagement: Personalization, transparency, and fast hiring processes will help organizations stand out in a competitive talent landscape and increase offer acceptance rates.
• Strengthening recruitment team capacity: Providing training for hiring managers and interviewers, while leveraging automation to reduce administrative burdens, can ease workloads and improve hiring efficiency.
• Focusing on actionable metrics: Expanding the measurement of candidate experience alongside operational metrics like time-to-hire will provide valuable insights for refining processes and improving outcomes.

By addressing these areas, manufacturing organizations can adapt to a challenging labor market, attract skilled talent, and build a more sustainable approach to hiring in 2025.

Let’s cut to the chase: manufacturing isn’t known for being on the cutting edge. The sector is typically slower to adapt to changes in the world of hiring. And these days, hiring seems to evolve at the speed of light—leaving most manufacturing recruiters in the dust. 

Recruiters must contend with new work structures, hiring policy standards, and expectations from candidates. AKA: your hiring team’s current way of doing things probably isn’t up to snuff. But don’t stress yet; we’re here to show you the way forward.

After surveying 531 talent acquisition leaders across sectors for our 2023 Hiring Insights Report, we’ve released the report’s manufacturing edition. Based on responses from 106 talent leaders in manufacturing, the report shows how they’re winning talent in the modern world (and much, much more hiring insights).

What challenges will define manufacturing? How will hiring change? And most importantly: how can manufacturing recruiters evolve their processes to overcome whatever is thrown their way? 

We’ve rounded up all of those crucial insights. Read on.

The Difficult Future for Manufacturing Recruiters

Another year, another set of obstacles. According to our survey, respondents expect to get hit by new challenges and shifts in the landscape this year.

If manufacturing recruiters want to overcome these forces, they’ll have to reassess their current processes. But first, what can teams expect in the evolving world of hiring?

Manufacturing’s Biggest Challenges

Limitations of Hiring Technology

Talent leaders in the manufacturing sector anticipate a major challenge in the coming year:
“limitations of current hiring technology” (27%). This ranked as their top concern. 

Talent teams within manufacturing and beyond have faced considerable turnover and budget cuts. In the aftermath, teams recognize that without the assistance of an airtight tech stack, they will struggle to meet their goals.

Slow, outdated technology acts as a massive roadblock for a high-volume hiring sector like manufacturing, where speed is the name of the game. But with purpose-built manufacturing recruiting software that enables efficiency and productivity, teams can keep candidates engaged and win them over in record time.

Changes in Company Hiring Policies

In today’s shifting hiring landscape, manufacturing companies need to stay agile and adjust their hiring policies accordingly. Talent leaders are well aware of this; they ranked “changes in company hiring policies” as their second biggest upcoming challenge (26%). 

It’s only natural for hiring policies to evolve in response to a transforming landscape, especially in a sector that has already undergone significant changes. Manufacturing no longer resembles what it was years ago. Traditionally viewed as an “in-person sector,” companies are slowly but surely embracing remote and hybrid work models.

This newfound flexibility in work structures gives manufacturers a competitive edge in attracting candidates and aligning with the values of emerging talent in the market. Yet to effectively support remote and hybrid work, hiring and HR teams must establish the right policies.

Manufacturing’s Biggest Shifts

Competitive or Uncompetitive Landscape? It’s Up for Debate

When it comes to upcoming changes in the hiring landscape, talent leaders have mixed opinions that really highlight the divide. 

On one hand, 44% believe that the landscape will become less competitive because of the increase in available remote talent. On the other hand, 43% believe that the landscape will actually become more competitive due to the rising demand for talent as a whole amdist a manufacturing labor shortage. 

With new challenges looming, the future feels quite uncertain to today’s teams.

Directors and the C-Suite Say…

When we look at the data broken down by seniority level, we see an intriguing split. Let’s analyze.

Most directors believe that the landscape will become more competitive because of the growing demand for talent (50%). However, most C-suite executives think that the landscape will become less competitive as remote talent becomes more available (46%).

It’s worth noting that directors have good reason to anticipate increased demand for talent. They understand the ongoing impact of the current skills shortage and the increase in job vacancies resulting from retirements and the sector’s rapid expansion.

C-suite executives are banking on the surge in remote talent to alleviate competition. But here’s the question: Are they ready to embrace remote work within their own organizations? Manufacturing is still new to the concept of flexible work; the C-suite might be more optimistic than directors about their progress in establishing remote structures.

How Manufacturing Recruiters Must Respond

We now have a feeling for what’s ahead in the hiring world. So, what’s a recruiter to do? To help inform your strategies moving forward, here’s how talent teams from our report plan on conquering recruitment.

Emphasize Time-to-Hire and Candidate Relationships

Topping the list at 36% each, talent leaders believe that reducing time-to-hire and fostering candidate relationships are the key areas that they must prioritize in the coming months. By improving these aspects, teams can establish a well-rounded hiring process.

Candidates want a process that moves swiftly, signaling that they are a priority and their time is valued. But speed alone isn’t everything. Candidates also crave the opportunity to establish a genuine connection with the hiring team and get a glimpse into the company’s work culture and its people.

Don’t Forget About the Tech Stack

To create this comprehensive candidate experience, teams have another priority in mind: upgrading their tech solutions, which comes in at 31%. Utilizing advanced tech tools would actually help teams improve all of the top five areas they plan to focus on.

An upgraded hiring tech stack streamlines the hiring process for candidates and boosts the efficiency of hiring teams. As a result, teams can dedicate more time to building meaningful connections with potential hires. 

And the big payoff? Ultimately, this effectively addresses talent leaders’ biggest anticipated challenge: the limitations of their current hiring technology.

Manufacturing Recruiters: Want More Insights?

2022 brought a shaky economy, sweeping reductions in force, and a challenging hiring landscape. The pressure is on to attract qualified candidates, deliver an efficient hiring process, and leverage hiring tools that drive success. Are you ready to succeed in 2023? 
To dive deeper into these insights and much, much more, get the manufacturing report today.