Labour market trends in food and beverage manufacturing

While the labour market eased somewhat in 2024, that’s not to say the food and beverage manufacturing sector’s labour challenge has diminished. Although job vacancies are declining from highs seen during the pandemic, structural labour market issues continue to strain the labour supply over the long term. This suggests the problem of high wage costs, which continue to pressure margins of manufacturers, is unlikely to go away anytime soon. In this report we lay out some of the labour challenges for the sector and put an emphasis on strategies for small businesses.

Labour market pressures ease

The trend we noted last year, on the improving short-term outlook for labour shortages, continued through 2024.

In 2024, labour demand (i.e. payroll employees and vacant positions) in food manufacturing dropped for the first time since 2020. Payroll employees declined 4.7% and job vacancies fell 31.8%. This led to a lower job vacancy rate of 2.6% in 2024, indicating less competition for workers. Despite this, offered wages for food manufacturing trended upwards in 2024 (Table 1).

Beverage manufacturing also experienced a 21.1% drop in job vacancies between 2023 and 2024 and a falling job vacancy rate. However, the number of payroll employees rebounded after two years of declines, boosting labour demand in 2024 by 6.8%. Wage growth in beverage manufacturing has been weaker, but trending in the same direction as food manufacturing over the last five years. In 2024, the trends diverged: offered wages in beverage manufacturing declined, while wages in food manufacturing rose (Table 1).