Hospitality Businesses Look To Recruitment Apps Amid Staff Shortages

Australian businesses hit with critical staff shortages are now using recruitment apps to find temporary shift workers.

Recruitment app Supp, an advertising platform for the hospitality sector has revealed available shifts had quadrupled since January to about 16,000 per month, according to the SMH and The Age papers.

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Co-founder and chief executive Jordan Murray said a 40 per cent increase has occurred in the number of hospitality workers using the app to find work since the start of 2022.

“Our main customer base is smaller, independent venues who don’t have any internal backup to call on when their chef catches Covid or a regular staff member can’t make it. These venues are under more pressure than usual because of the shortage,” Murray said.

Another app Sidekicker has also reported a significant increase in weekly worker sign-ups.

Tom Amos, chief executive, and co-founder said the benefit to workers meant they could “try out” different businesses to find better conditions through the app.

Amos said they were seeing more spend from businesses on temporary Sidekicker workers, as opposed to directly employing casual staff.

“We’re able to provide better data to business about what’s going on, and for the candidates, it’s just a significantly better experience, so we get more candidates coming to us,” Amos said.

Sidekicker, which operates in Australia and New Zealand, has more than 12,000 casual workers on its platform, and is used by more than 5,000 businesses.

Wages on Supp were generally 10 to 20 per cent higher than the award, according to its chief executive.

Supp, who operate as a third-party platform, also charges businesses an additional 12 per cent fee, which includes insurance, sales tax and a payment processing charge.

While Sidekicker charges a service fee of 20 per cent to businesses, but directly employs workers and handles payroll.

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