By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Chicago fast-food giant, McDonald’s has temporarily closed operations in U.S. offices as the company prepares to notify corporate employees about layoffs, a published report has indicated.
The Wall Street Journal cited an internal email from the Chicago fast-food giant saying
The U.S. corporate staff and some employees outside the US are expected to work from home while the company informs people of their job status, The Wall Street Journal report said, citing an internal email.
The report said McDonald’s would inform its employees this week about staffing decisions that are part of a broad restructuring of the company announced earlier but the company has not made any comment on the report.
Layoffs have become recurrent in recent times, mainly in the technology sector, where many companies over-hired after a pandemic boom. IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and DoorDash have all announced layoffs in recent months.
McDonald’s has more than 150,000 employees in corporate roles and in company-owned restaurants. About 70% of those employees are based outside the United States.
The company reported its global sales rose nearly 11% in 2022, while sales in the U.S. climbed almost 6%. Total restaurant margins rose 5%. In its latest annual report, it cited difficulties in adequately staffing some of its outlets.
McDonald’s had warned employees in January that layoffs would be coming as the company tried to get more nimble, innovate more quickly and break down walls between its global markets.
In a January memo to employees, McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempczinski said the company was evaluating roles and staffing levels in various parts of the company.
“We have historically been very decentralized in some areas where we reinvent the wheel way too often,” Kempczinski said during a January conference call with investors. “And I think the other thing I’ve seen is we haven’t been as sharp around our global priorities, and so there’s been proliferation of priorities.”
