McDonald's to hire 50,000 today

[Recursion]

Source: Chicago Tribune

Fast food chain McDonald's is offering more than the Happy Meal today. Along with the Big Breakfast and Big Macs, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company is fighting the McJob label in part by offering 50,000 jobs nationally.

The company said it would bolster its workforce by 7.7 percent. That comes to about 700,000 jobs.

...

Jobs to be offered to U.S. employees range from restaurant crew to a being salaried management employee.

...

McDonald's hourly employees typically make more than minimum wage, often more than $8 per hour. But that could vary depending on the franchise.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-wgntv-mcdonalds-national-hiring-day-apr19,0,3421957.story

[hobbit709]

1. And 99% of them will be part-time with no benefits.

[Recursion]

2. Well, since the breakdown isn't given, we have no idea

McDonalds already insures a greater percentage of its workforce than Starbucks does. So does WalMart.

The "McInsurance" problem is one that PPACA is designed to deal with: companies like McDonalds will pay penalties that will basically fund the exchange subsidies.

[Broderick]

3. My Grandmother

Retired a second time in life, the second being at Wal-mart after 20 years. She loved it there. Amassed quite a little nest egg for her retirement in the process while there with stock options, etc. I never argue with her about what Wal-Mart did to the little local stores in the town she worked at, because she is my Grandmother... sigh.

[jtuck004]

7. McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm

Ask anyone who has been injured at a McDonalds - it isn't what most of us think as health care coverage.

And as far as pay, these jobs are mostly part-time, and won't support the police, schools, and the rest of the infrastructure we have all come to depend on. Enough to pay a minimal court-ordered amount to cover the fees at the collection agencies however. Good thing these people will get a discount on the crap that is served there, because they can't afford to shop like people with good jobs.

[hobbit709]

12. They try very hard to make sure you don't go over 30 hrs/wk.

Most people there average 25 hrs.

[sudopod]

19. With deductuables in the upper four figures

does it really count?

[Le Taz Hot]

13. When you've passed week 99

and have NO income coming in, and no prospects, $8.00 an hour and 20 hours a week looks good by comparison. :shrug:

[abqmufc]

20. Maybe for you...but after 12 months w/o a job...this IS NOT good news.

[onenote]

14. do you have a link for that?

[hobbit709]

23. No, but how many fast food franchises want their people to work full time that you know of?

[Recursion]

25. These aren't the franchises

90% of McDonald's are franchises, but those don't count in McDonalds' employment numbers.

[hobbit709]

26. Quibble about "franchises"

How many fast food joints have people working full time then? Is THAT better?

[Recursion]

27. I'm saying like all chains, the corporate McD's are better places to work than the franchises

And the corporate ones aren't as bad about keeping people at 29.5 hours a week, etc. (This is where HR departments are good things since they standardize what happens across all the locations.)

[hobbit709]

28. Have proof of that?

My mother used to work at a corporate owned one. That's one of the reasons I won't even order a water at one.

[Recursion]

30. Just having worked at both

I could have had a shitty franchisee and an awesome corporate manager for all I know. But there was a lot less pressure to keep payroll down in the corporate one.

[PSPS]

4. Wow! "more than minimum wage, often more than $8 per hour" Wow!!11!

I wonder if this will be like Walmart, where they have a meeting with the new hires to help them apply for public assistance.

[NorthCarolina]

5. Well, we don't manufacture anything other than weaponry for the most part, so

that pretty much leaves just the service industry, fast food, Walmart, etc. to employ America. "Hamburger U" will likely become one of the premier institutions of higher education for Americans.

[Recursion]

34. We still make the best guitars, motorcycles, and guns

That's something...

[NorthCarolina]

38. Something, I guess, but it's still a far cry from where we need to be

as a nation.

[Recursion]

39. Well, at least as of last year we still lead the world in manufacturing by value

Although no longer by tonnage (that's now China).

The three I mentioned (guitars, guns, and motorcycles) we are pretty much indisputably the best at and probably will be for a long time. But the rest of our manufacturing is largely in the same mold: low-volume, high-value, high-skill. We do more prototype manufacturing than China and Japan combined. Planet Money on NPR interviewed some American manufacturers last year (that's where I got the "still lead the world" numbers); they went to a button factory in Brooklyn that puts out the prototype buttons for the garment district (or what's left of it) and then sends the industrial process for mass manufacturing to Indonesia. I don't know if this sort of thing A) can fully employ us or B) is sustainable, but it's good to know it's still here.

[bulloney]

6. They'll have to hire from a short radius of their stores because $8/hr doesn't cut it with $4-5 gas.

[MineralMan]

8. With 13,700 McDonald's locations, that's not going to be

all that difficult. I'd be interested to know how many people get hired in a typical week at all those stores. There's a lot of fluidity in that sort of job.

As for them being McJobs, they're jobs. Not great jobs, but they're jobs, and those are in short supply.

Good for McDonald's, I say. And I'm sure those taking those 50,000 jobs will be very happy to have them.

[OwnedByFerrets]

9. Happy might not be the correct wording....

I think many of these positions will be filled with college graduates who cannot find other employment in the US. While they may be temporarily satisfied with a job at McAdoos, I doubt they are happy about the prospect.

[MineralMan]

15. I haven't seen any such workers in my local McDonald's stores.

Most appear to be the same workers I've always seen there. High school kids, young people with HS diplomas, etc. I don't see a lot of college graduates at McDonald's. Maybe some of the managers, I suppose, but not the line workers. And I live in a city with over a dozen colleges.

Around here, most of the McDonald's line workers are young, very ethnically diverse, and marginally articulate. Maybe you see something else where you are.

[jtuck004]

22. Most of them live with parents or several others - which works fine

until you have 27 million unemployed or underemployed people. At least two of the employees where I work live in a shelter. (One came in last week just tickled pink at the pair of shoes they got for $3 at Goodwill - another place that only survives when people have enough to throw away). Foreclosures for March were only 240,000 nationwide, but this is expected to pick up as they sweep the fraudulent robo-signing under the rug.

And while we can cut social programs (like medical care for kids in Washington State) we are not touching the subsidies given to companies like McDonalds for programs like their "No Training Initiative" in which they try to make french fry and burger cooking require little more than paying attention to lights and buzzers. No English required.

Latest IRS stats show about 2 million more returns processed now than by this time last year, but collections down by .2%. Even with tax deductions, this should have increased with the higher population, and foreclosures should show a decrease, but the opposite is happening.

I am glad the jobs are there for someone, but I am not fooling myself into thinking that it is anything more than keeping busy while the economics crumble around them.

[Violet_Crumble]

36. My daughter has worked for Maccas for 18 months...

She used to have to be at work some mornings by 5am to do the cafe open, and the pay was equally crap, but the training they gave her gave her an advantage when she just applied for and landed a government administration job that had nearly 6,000 applicants from around the country. Maccas was never a career option for her, but it was a good starting point till she got a job she really wanted....

[bhikkhu]

10. Credit where credit's due...

I can't stomach their food, and they certainly don't pay a living wage or offer much in the way of a career for most, but when you're young "a jobs a job". 50k jobs is a lot, especially in this economy! I imagine that will be a lot of summer jobs, and a lot of people living with their folks needing some income while going to school, or sorting things out.

I started out in a donut shop myself and learned to manage a register, to talk to customers courteously, and to keep my head when there was a line going - sounds easy, but at 17 it was some work!

[Botany]

11. I don't eat their food except an occasional egg mc muff

but this is a lot of jobs and for most it is not a career but a job is better then no job.

Credit is due to McDonald's for helping 50,000 people out.

[onenote]

16. a question for those who are dumping on McD's for hiring 50K employees

Would you be happy if they announced they were laying off 50,000 employees?

[blue_onyx]

17. It's good that they are hiring...

but I hate the nonsense that the media/McDonalds is trying to sell us about needing to reconsider our view of "McJobs." These are crappy jobs that 99% of the time will lead nowhere. What you consider "dumping" on McDonalds I call having a realistic view on the narrative we're being sold. If we're suppose to get excited about minimize wage jobs, even when you have a college degree, the future looks pretty bleak.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dulcinea]

35. Good for them.

It's doubtful anyone sees McD's as a career move, but it's something to do while looking for a better job. At least someone working there can answer "Yes" to the question, "Are you currently employed?" There are MANY documented cases of companies refusing to hire the jobless. (And yes, I agree, that absolutely sucks!)

[lib2DaBone]

18. If they can't off shore these jobs... maybe they can bring the Chinese workers here?

:sarcasm:

[MineralMan]

24. Well, the McDonald's stores in Saint Paul, MN

sure employ a lot of young Hmong-heritage people, the children of the refugees who were brought here after the Vietnam war. They have a hard time getting jobs in this area, but McDonald's is always hiring. Several of the local McDonald's also hire mentally-challenged workers. They're one of the few employers in the area who do this.

I don't know. Jobs are jobs, really. If you can't get one, you want one, and McDonald's is hiring.

[TygrBright]

29. I hope like hell that this cynical PR gesture backfires on them.

If they really wanted to fight the McJob label they can start by offering regular full-time shifts, full benefits, and decent working conditions.

dismissively,
Bright

[Dappleganger]

31. Our daughter was just hired by them on Saturday.

She starts work on Thursday. She's a 19 year old student going to tech school and has been looking for a part-time job for over two years. We need her to work so she can pay her own fuel costs for school and buy her other incidentals as we just can't hardly afford it.

Our 17 yr. old son has been working part-time since he was 14 (same job at a grocery store) and he's been paying for his own stuff awhile--once again, we need him to do that.

[woo me with science]

32. We're in RECOVERY!!!!!

We're in RECOVERY!!!!!

[Recursion]

33. Interesting fact from the Slate version of the article

http://www.slate.com/id/2291534/

These are current McDonald's executives who started out behind the counter:

http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/bios/janice_l_fields.html
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/bios/jeff_stratton.html
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/bios/steve_plotkin.html
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/bios/karen_king.html

Along with half of the owner-operators and 75% of the store managers.

[Beavker]

37. Tax Cuts working!

Have the Teabaggers jumped on this yet as the GOP Creating jobs? I'm surprised they haven't taken credit. Of course the jobs are low wage, part time, and catering to the ever more working poor that have now had to resort to McDonald's for their cheap and nutrient deficient food. Even the McD's spokesman said they are responding to the need created by more 'economical' eating alternatives.

I suppose that coroners, morticians and Grave diggers will be hiring soon too. More people will be dying from starvation, preventable diseases and suicide than ever! More jobs! Less unemployed (due to death) It's a win/win! :sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

40. Thousands show up to apply for fast-food "McJobs"

Source: Reuters

Thousands show up to apply for fast-food "McJobs"
By Eric Johnson Eric Johnson – Tue Apr 19, 9:18 pm ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) – They may be mostly the kind of low-wage positions disparaged by some highly paid economists and politicians as "McJobs," but they drew a torrent of eager job-seekers on Tuesday to the world's leading hamburger chain.

Kicking off a hiring binge it insisted was no publicity stunt, McDonald's Corp said it was inundated with applications for some 50,000 newly posted jobs at its 14,000 U.S. restaurants.

"It was positively overwhelming," said one McDonald's employee in New York who asked not to be identified. "We knew national hiring day was going to be successful and prepared for lines of folks, and we were amazed by the turnout and the excitement."

Crowds of would-be burger flippers showed up to apply at one McDonald's in Newark, New Jersey, said Cheryll Forsatz, a spokeswoman for the fast-food chain in New Jersey. One-hundred applied at a store in Cincinnati, Ohio, and hundreds turned up in Tampa, Florida, company officials said.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110420/us_nm/us_mcdonalds_hiring

[Trajan]

41. I sent my twenty year old boy ....

He wasn't doing anything anyways ....

[conspirator]

53. It's definititely better than joining the army nt

[liberal N proud]

42. It turned violent in Cleveland

Police: Four hit by car in McDonald's parking lot, cell phone video shows incident

Cleveland police spokesperson Sammy Morris said two women got out of a silver Nissan Infiniti in the restaurant’s parking lot. The two women then got into an argument with a group another of women who were waiting in line to apply for jobs, police said. That’s when things turned physical.

After the fight, the two suspects returned to the car. Since there were so many people in the McDonald’s parking lot trying to seek employment, the women couldn’t drive forward, police said. Instead, the driver put the car in reverse with the car door still open, authorities said.

According to Cleveland police, she hit four people while trying to get out of the parking lot. Police said three adults and a 17-year-old girl were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center, but their injuries do not appear to be serious.


Story and the video at link:
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/Police-Four-hit-by-car-in-McDonalds-parking-lot

[Lasher]

54. Not a real good way to get a job interview started.

Probably have to deduct a point or two under 'works well with others'.

[Kali]

43. this makes me so sad for our country

:(

[earthside]

44. This is a stunt.

The mainstream 'news' media have been hyping McDonald's and their big hiring event for weeks now -- tons of positive free advertising.

But my hunch is that McDonald's probably always hires a lot of folks for the summer months -- this year they just decided to do it for maximum public relations.

All-in-all, however, I just have to think how pathetic this all looks in the 'big picture' scheme of things ... this is what America has come to: it's a big deal when burger-flipping jobs are touted as evidence of a 'recovering' economy.

[ixion]

48. exactly. Green Shoots McJobs

it's a sad statement on both where we're at, and where we're going.

[phantom power]

55. +oo -- the fact that this is treated as "news" is a national humiliation.

[Zorra]

45. The system works! Crashing the banks left the populace begging, beggiing

I tell you, JUST TO FLIP BURGERS!!!

For less money a month than we spend on cat food for Fluffy!!!

We've won! We've crushed the lowlife scum!

[IrishEyes]

46. I think it is nice

I don't know why people are so upset about McDonalds hiring 50,000 workers. The unemployment rate for teenagers is much higher than adults. There is nothing wrong with working at McDonalds when you are young. I worked there in college. It paid for my textbooks and extra spending money. This just means that 50,000 people will have a job. I'm not saying the economy isn't still bad. I just think things are getting better. I like the idea of 50,000 teenagers having jobs. They can save for school and help out their families. With many parents out of work, it is good when a teenager has the opportunity to help out a little. I know that many adults are forced to take fast food jobs in places where there is still high unemployment. I know that McDonalds is a crummy job when you are an adult. Good luck to everybody who is looking for a job. I hope things get better for everyone.

[Syeda]

49. I partially agree

I do hate the idea of a low paying, corrupt, stereotypical American Fast Food corporation such as McDonald's gaining that sort of publicity and having so much power in the sense that so many people aspire to work there. However, like you said, they need to work there for money. I actually work at Burger King right now and with the money I made this year, I was able to pay for what financial aid didn't cover of my college tuition. So while I do hate big corporations since they don't pay enough or offer any benefits (even the one I work for), I don't necessarily believe this is such an awful thing as a whole.

[EC]

50. Teens?

I'm sure at least half of these were adults just trying to get a job SOMEWHERE.

[lib2DaBone]

51. Oh Ya.. things are swell....

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OhioChick]

64. When they showed the thousands lined up in Ohio....

I didn't see many teenagers but rather people aged 40-60+.

[ixion]

47. I am neither a "highly-paid economist" nor a politician, and I call them McJobs

because that's that they are: Low-paying, go-nowhere, do-you-want-to-supersize-that McJobs.

[Demit]

61. That got me too. Subtle way to get you to think it's only those ELITISTS who think they're bad jobs

REAL Americans will now rally around them as excellent jobs! /sarcasm off/

[bongbong]

52. McDonalds

When McDonalds was added the Dow Jones 30 Industrials Index, I knew it was only a matter of time before America crashed into the ground. BTW, that happened in 1985 !!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_components_of_the_Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average

80 years ago, it was almost all heavy industry like steel companies, railroads, cars, etc. Now, not so much.

[bengalherder]

56. I keep my Wustof chef knife very sharp

and I will fall on it in a fit of HariKiri if I am ever faced with the thought of working at McDonalds.

As a youngster, I once spent three hours in the kitchen of their rivals, and I pretty much lost all desire to even eat fast food again.

Fast food, it's not just for kids anymore.

[fasttense]

57. People fighting over minimum wage, no benefits, McJobs. How sad.

What has this country turned into?

McJobs use to be for young kids because no one else wanted them due to the low pay. Now, they are considered worthy of fighting over.

Next thing you know we will be fighting over who can clean Bill Gate's and the Koch Brother's toilets.

[Robb]

63. I was surprised, actually. Apparently there are quite a few benefits, including medical insurance.

It varies state to state, but it appears if you work more than 20 hours you qualify for a host of benefits: http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/careers/benefits.html

No idea how good they are, of course ... and I did have to laugh at "free uniforms."

[Bozita]

59. "The Golden Arches are offering golden opportunities." - CBS Evening News + 2 local teevee reporters

Heard that exact phrase three times yesterday.

Was that shit on some kinda McPress Release?

[teabaghater]

60. I picked up

a young guy hitchhiking the other day. He told me he was heading down to apply for a job at "Mikey Dee's". Said that with his two other room mates they would have enough money to pay the rent and eat. That's what this country's come down to? Looking forward to working flipping burgers? Obviously he sees no farther than today. There's no future for him. Where does he go from there? Wendy's? I feel so bad for people coming up these days, absolutely no future, no chance for a steady good paying job with benefits. What Reagan started in this country was the beginning of the end.
Everyday I wonder how I can hate republicans more, what I personally could do to help stop them. I can only see one way.

[Demit]

62. Shoe leather: It might be disparaged by highly paid economists & politicians as not really food...

but crowds of people will soon be boiling it for supper.