State of frontline hiring: The data behind the demand and disconnect

September 23, 2025

 

Trent Cotton

7 min read

Frontline roles are the beating heart of the U.S. economy. And yet, hiring for these roles is at a breaking point.

According to our iCIMS 2025 State of Frontline Hiring Report, 91% of hiring decision-makers say the need to fill frontline roles is urgent. While urgency is high, success in hiring seems elusive. Applications go unfinished. Interviews get skipped. Qualified candidates show interest and then disappear. Offers go unanswered.

So, what’s going wrong?

Based on fresh data from over 2,000 frontline workers and hiring leaders across healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, and retail, our report reveals the real reasons companies struggle to fill essential roles and how top employers are addressing them.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• Where the frontline hiring funnel is breaking down

• What candidates are really looking for (and what they’re not getting)

• How specific sectors are performing

• Tactical steps to remove friction and convert urgency into actual hires

The stakes are high, but so are the solutions. Let’s dig into what’s broken, what’s working and how you can start hiring better today.

Interest is high, but the data says there’s a leak

The data shows there is no shortage of interest in frontline jobs. Unfortunately, there is still a disconnect between candidates and hiring managers.

According to the report, 60% of frontline workers say they’ve started but never finished a job application. Even among those who do apply, many never make it to the interview stage. However, data from employers show more than 60% of hiring managers cite “candidate quality” as their top hiring challenge. But the data points to structural flaws in the hiring process itself.

Here’s where the funnel is failing:

• Application abandonment: Half of the candidates who quit during the application process say the forms are too long or time-consuming.

• Interview drop-offs: 32% of employers report the biggest loss happens between scheduling and the interview. Candidates are often unresponsive — or they’ve already accepted offers elsewhere.

• Communication gaps: Twenty-two percent of frontline workers say they exited the hiring process due to poor or delayed communication from the employer.

The real issue isn’t candidate interest, but the disconnect between what employers assume and how candidates behave. Companies often chase scale, including more postings and resumes, yet overlook the friction points that quietly push qualified people out of the process.

How do you fix the leaks if the problem is in your process?  The following section unpacks where those breakdowns happen by industry — healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, and retail — and the practical solutions leaders use to address them.

Fixing the funnel: Sector-specific hiring breakdowns and solutions

The data makes one thing clear: the hiring funnel is broken, but where it’s breaking depends heavily on the industry. Every frontline sector is under pressure to hire fast — yet each is losing candidates at different stages, often due to internal friction, not external scarcity.

Let’s break it down.

Healthcare: Friction at every step

Healthcare is under the most acute hiring pressure, with 96% of hiring managers saying the need is urgent. But urgency doesn’t matter if candidates can’t make it through your process. According to the data, 52% of the applicants surveyed have abandoned an application, with the top reason cited at 62% as lengthy forms.

What to fix:

• Cut down the length of your application and streamline the experience to allow you to get the information you need without frustrating your candidates.

• Because candidate quality is one of the biggest obstacles (47%), find ways to qualify candidates more efficiently before the hiring manager interview. Use qualification questions, assessments and AI-driven ranking in the application process to improve candidate quality without adding extra time.

Hospitality: Leaking talent early

No industry loses candidates earlier than hospitality. Application abandonments are elevated. Sixty-eight percent of hospitality workers have abandoned a job application, the highest rate of any sector. The top reasons cited are long, time-consuming forms (47%) and uncertainty about their qualifications (32%). In this market, slow means empty shifts.

What to fix:

• Focus on speed to interview by charting your candidate journey and identifying bottlenecks early in the process.

• Many of the candidates in this sector are applying primarily on mobile, so focus on enhancing and streamlining your application process.

• Lead with pay and scheduling clarity in the job description.

Manufacturing: Losing people at the finish line

Manufacturing has a different problem. Candidates often make it through the funnel but disappear at the end. Where do they fall off? Interview, offer and onboarding are where it begins to fall apart. The good news is that if these obstacles are addressed, this sector experiences one of the quickest acceptance times at 48 hours.

• There’s a mismatch between employer expectations and worker priorities.

What to fix:

• One way to reduce dropouts is by communicating growth paths and paying early in the process.

• With candidate quality being the highest rated obstacle (74%), consider assessments as part of the application process and AI ranking to ensure the most qualified candidates have a fast track to an offer.

Retail: Disconnect on fit and transparency

Retail leaders think their hiring processes are easy to use, but candidates disagree. In fact, only 9% say they consistently find jobs that match what they need. Even when retail workers find a job match, 60% have abandoned the application. The leading reason is that the process is too long or time-consuming (56%).

What to fix:

• Post pay. Every time. No exceptions.

• Improve the filtering and matching tools on your career site to help candidates find the perfect match.

• Follow up quickly and often. Consider automating follow-up emails outlining next steps at the most critical stages of the process.

Each of these sectors shows the same pattern: process is the problem. If your hiring system isn’t fast, transparent and aligned with what candidates care about, it’s working against you.

Building a better frontline hiring system

The organizations filling roles faster right now aren’t winning on brand alone. They’re winning because they have removed friction, prioritized transparency and put real decision-making power closer to the ground.

The first step is streamlining the application process. Candidates aren’t abandoning because they’re lazy — they’re leaving because the process is slow, outdated or unclear. If your application flow hasn’t been tested end-to-end on a mobile device, it’s likely underperforming. Long forms, multiple logins and vague steps are all red flags.

Next is transparency. Across every industry in the report, the lack of pay clarity is a top reason candidates walk away. Posting pay isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s now table stakes. The same goes for scheduling. If the core expectations of the job aren’t visible up front, don’t expect people to apply.

The need for speed. One of the most consistent themes across all sectors is that delay kills. Candidates are making decisions quickly — often in a matter of days or even hours. If your process takes a week to schedule an interview or get an offer approved, it’s already too slow. Employers that empower frontline managers to move fast are the ones closing those roles.

Alignment matters. Too many job descriptions are still written in vague, aspirational terms that don’t match the day-to-day reality of the role. Candidates are looking for relevance, not spin. Improving role descriptions and matching tools helps reduce drop-off and improves the quality of hire.

But speed and clarity alone aren’t enough. Frontline hiring managers also point to automation and AI as critical levers to accelerate time to hire. That’s why last week, iCIMS announced the acquisition of Apli, an AI-powered recruitment automation innovator.

Together with iCIMS Frontline AI, this next-gen hiring solution helps employers improve speed, efficiency, and quality, all while creating a consumer-grade application and onboarding journey for critical frontline roles.

The success formula is simple: fix the points of friction, lead with clarity and give your team the tools to move.

If you want to learn more about the data on the current state of frontline hiring, please download your free report here.