Job Hunting With Coffee

In my current job hunt I have noticed that employeers often want your resume, and then ask you to fill out an application with pretty much the exact same information as you put on your resume. What is the purpose of this redundancy. Some of the forms they want filled out make sense, depending on the job applied for. Those I understand, but it's the general application with name education work history and skills that makes me wonder, why all the hoops?