Geoffrey Yau, co-founder of Moovup, was recently interviewed by AM730 to discuss in detail Moovup’s target audience and its application of AI. The COVID-19 pandemic shattered the rice bowls of working people, dealing a double blow to the labor market. On the other hand, the workplace ecosystem underwent changes amidst the epidemic, making employers more willing to leverage technology to streamline the hiring process. Moovup, an online/app recruitment platform specializing in frontline jobs—commonly known as “blue-collar” work—analyzed the latest employment market conditions and salary fluctuations. “We found that there is an information asymmetry phenomenon in the workplace, and we hope to leverage the platform’s AI to enhance the recruitment experience and accelerate the efficiency of labor-management matching.”
Focusing on Blue-Collar Workers with Free Mobile Recruitment
While most job platforms in the market focus on white-collar and professional workers, Moovup positions itself specifically for frontline vacancies, mainly covering 16 industries such as retail, catering, logistics, and property management, making it currently the largest one-stop platform for related job types. Yau described the number of job postings as comparable to that of the Labour Department. “Essentially, enterprises can post recruitment advertisements on Moovup for free, register and publish via mobile numbers, and instantly contact job seekers through WhatsApp, making the recruitment process more mobile and convenient. The platform also provides an easy-to-use backend interface that can simultaneously handle posting and managing multiple ads, with application previews clear at a glance.”
He noted that employers screen candidates directly on the platform to shorten the interview process. With increased platform stickiness among job seekers, the service became extremely popular during the pandemic. Enterprises can also set budgets to “pin” their ads to the top for increased exposure and click-through performance. Combined with big data and machine learning, suitable job recommendations are pushed based on job seekers’ preferences. He stated that the platform has consequently increased page views and clicks by 23% and shortened job-seeking time by 20%. “To date, app downloads have exceeded 800,000, with over 130,000 monthly active users. Last year, when the epidemic stabilized and consumer confidence rebounded in the second half of the year, recruitment ads reached a peak of 27,000 in November and December, before the market was affected by the fifth wave of the epidemic.”
“FlexiWork”: Matching for Casual Work (“Chau Saan”)
The pandemic forced workers to change industries, giving rise to temporary workers commonly known as “chau saan” (casual/odd-job workers). Anticipating supply and demand needs, Yau developed “FlexiWork” to assist employers in recruiting and managing temporary workers through an end-to-end approach. “You can think of it as a headhunting platform for casual workers,” he said, noting that the service mainly targets industries like retail and catering to meet the unpredictable consumer market under the pandemic. However, “chau saan” can only be a temporary expedient. Yau does not encourage job seekers to use it as a substitute for full-time employment, nor to frequently switch environments through trial work, which he warns is ultimately detrimental to their resumes in the long run.
