McDonald's hiring of 50,000: It's the turnover, stupid
McDonald's is getting huge play on the Web today for its announced hiring binge on April 19. The company said it will hire up to 50,000 people that day. But McDonald's hires tens of thousands of people all the time. The company's annual turnover, an executive told the Wall Street Journal three years ago, is 700,000. So that year, anyway, it had to hire 58,000 people every month just to keep the lights on.
That's a worldwide number. Today's announcement concerns only U.S. jobs. Still, it's not like there's likely to be a permanent increase of 50,000 in McDonald's U.S. work force. The company says its turnover has slowed because of the recession, and it says it's keeping more restaurants open 24 hours a day. But people still quit all the time.
UPDATE: I finally found the press release, which doesn't seem to be on McDonald's own site. The company implies without saying so that this will be a net increase of 50,000 jobs in its U.S. stores. Color me skeptical.
The addition of 50,000 potential hires translates into $54 million more in payroll taxes contributed to the broader economy. Using a statistical multiplier effect, 50,000 new workers will generate almost $1.4 billion in annual spending – more than $3.5 million per day.
Comments
...and thus the term: "McJobs"
(Color me skeptical as well.)
Posted by: MrRational | April 4, 2011 3:23 PM
I see nothing but POSITIVE results from this announcement.
Posted by: Michelle Brown | April 4, 2011 4:39 PM
I guess it's possible that with adding more restaurants and keeping many open longer hours that McD's will need significantly more staff.
Still, 50,000 seems like an incredibly high number, especially for an all-at-once move.
Either they've been running a lot of restaurants short-staffed or plan on running many over-staffed...
That, or maybe they want to start keeping the majority of their restaurants open 24 hours and expand to some new areas, which could conceivably bridge the gap.
Posted by: John J. Walters | April 5, 2011 1:25 PM
Mr. Hancock,
Turnover from three years ago isn't very applicable in today's economy or job market. I believe that McDonald's crew turnover was about 60% last year....so about half of what it was three years ago. It's opportunity for those that need it, so why color you skeptical? Can't you just encourage folks that need some help right now to "go for it"?
Posted by: Scott Anderson | April 9, 2011 1:16 PM