(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.)The Oak Brook, Ill.-based quick-service restaurant chain is expected to release the final hiring count next week.
McDonald's painted the event as a boon for an economy where more than 13 million Americans are looking for work. But the real purpose, industry experts told AP, is that McDonald's needs to portray itself as a decent employer. That will be a challenge for a company whose name is often synonymous with "you-want-fries-with-that" jokes. "McJob" even has a place in The Oxford English Dictionary, defined as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects."
Managers at a McDonald's in Cincinnati said a dozen or so applicants had lined up by 7:00 a.m., an hour before the restaurant planned to start interviews. By 10:00 a.m., the store had interviewed 100 people and had 25 more waiting.
McDonald's and other fast-food chains, once an entry point into the work force for teenagers, appear to be turning into an employer of more adults, a legacy of the recession, industry watchers told the news agency. The average age of a fast-food worker is 29.5, up from 22 in 2000, according to the report, citing U.S. Census Bureau data.
Danitra Barnett, McDonald's U.S. vice president of human resources, said she could not specify what proportion of the 50,000 new jobs will be full-time, or what they will pay. About 90% of McDonald's restaurants are owned by franchisees, and the company does not control what they offer in wages or benefits. Barnett said most franchisees pay more than minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour nationally, or about $15,000 a year for a full-time worker, according to government formulas cited by AP.
McDonald's said it and its franchisees will spend an additional $518 million in the coming year because of Tuesday's hiring. That amounts to just over $10,000 per new employee.
Spokesperson Danya Proud said the company preferred to focus on the net economic benefit of the new hiring, including the money that employees will spend in their local economies.
In Senate testimony last year, McDonald's said that about 75% of employees at company-owned restaurants are part-time, averaging 18 hours a week. Restaurant employees tend to stay an average of 17 months, HR chief Rich Floersch testified in December.
But McDonald's also touts how its jobs can grow into bigger opportunities. According to the company, 30% of its executives started in restaurants, as well as more than 70% of restaurant managers.
Salaried managers for company-owned restaurants can make between about $32,000 and $50,000 annually, Proud said. That is slightly less than elementary school teachers, who average $53,150, according to the report, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is more than bank tellers, at $24,780. The average annual salary in the United States is $43,460.
Though the 50,000 jobs are new, McDonald's usually staffs up for summer anyway, and it is constantly gaining and losing employees. It added 50,000 new workers in April last year, so Tuesday's blitz amounts to typical hiring, the report said, albeit compressed into a day.
With 14,000 U.S. restaurants, Tuesday's additions amount to about three or four new employees per restaurant--the amount that each store is probably usually looking for anyway, Sara Senatore, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, told AP.
For Richmond, Va., area franchisee Sue Durlak, National Hiring Day was an opportunity to expand the applicant pool for her 10 restaurants, and maybe even find someone who can follow in her footsteps. She started part-time in 1982 while working as a middle-school health teacher in Illinois to supplement her income. She has since worked her way up to owning several locations."I do look at anyone who applies, as well as the rest of my team, as the potential as a lifer," Durlak told the news agency.
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