Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald’s, announced that the 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the United States have reduced their opening hours by 10% on average due to staff shortages, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The CEO acknowledged that McDonald’s restaurants are open for fewer hours than before the pandemic because they do not have enough staff.
In the immediate future the brand of the golden arches fight against the latest variant of the coronavirus, rising inflation and labor shortages.
And in the long term, the burger giant is trying to find a formula to sustain the growth of the company whose products feel outdated to many young consumers, who are increasingly leaning towards different gastronomic experiences instead of mass-produced hamburgers.
In In October of last year, Kempczinski had already acknowledged that restaurant service was slowing down because they could not find enough staff and that some restaurants had reduced their hours.
The manager added that restaurant staff McDonald’s had not recovered as quickly as expected and already anticipated that the problems would persist in “the next few quarters”.
In social networks, a message even went viral when an employee in a restaurant posted a message apologizing for the slow service due to the lack of workers.
The panorama looks complicated for the restaurant industry due to because Americans are quitting their jobs in search of better wages, benefits and better working conditions and that other people have decided to change industries, retire early or are afraid of being infected.
Some restaurants they had to cut r work hours, reduce their menus, abandon on-site dining, and raise prices, largely because they are understaffed.
Kempczinski ultimately said the chain needed to provide the jobs people wanted and take care of its workers. McDonald’s is one of the companies that increased their salaries by an average of 15% in the last year, according to its CEO in October in the earnings call.
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