Recently McDonald’s decided to have a mass hiring of 50,000 new employees for it’s US based hamburger restaurants some of which will be full-time and some part-time. They actually ended up hiring 62,000 new employees as a result of all the applications they received. Because many of the restaurants are owned by franchisees the wages are not controlled by the company but many of the jobs were estimated to be for more than the nationwide minimum wage of $7.25 / hr. and managers can make up to $50,000 per year.
McDonald’s is the largest employer in the fast-food industry and 70 percent of its managers started out as regular crew members in the restaurants. So even though jobs at McDonald’s are often looked down upon and called “McJobs” the fact is that they do provide an opportunity for those willing to work. Half of McDonalds workforce is made up of minorities and women and McDonalds’s employs over 700,000 people. However, the mood in the nation is not good when people get excited about jobs at McDonald’s which is often derided for the low pay and lack of benefits.
With 12 Million unemployed, McDonald’s received 938,000 job applicants, or almost 1 Million applications. That is almost 1/12th of the unemployed workforce showing up at a local McDonalds to apply for a job. Unfortunately, only 6.6% of those who applied actually got jobs and at least one well publicized fight broke out. At that rate it is surprising that there weren’t more fights.
