McDonald's Hiring 375,000 this Summer. Is that Significant?

McDonald's announced this week that it plans to hire 375,000 people this summer. The news is being touted, politically, as evidence of President Trump's strong economy. But how significant is that figure of 375,000 in McDonald's overall picture? I mean, it sure looks like a big number, but is it, really? My conclusion after doing a bit of research is that it looks like Business As Usual that's being touted for political purposes. Here's my analysis:

The first question I considered is how many people work at McDonald's already. 375k is an increase of what percent? A quick search shows that McDonald's currently employs about 800,000 workers. In that sense, adding 375,000 new employees is a huge gain, nearly +50%. But that's not an accurate picture. 800k jobs is a corporate figure. Most McDonald's restaurants are run as franchises, and franchisees do their own hiring. McDonald's actually said in its press release that 375,000 will be hired by it and its franchisees. Added together they currently have an estimated 2 million employees today. So while 375,000 is still a big number it's less than a 20% increase.

My next question is what McDonald's turnover rate is. Hiring 20% new employees is a lot if it's all net growth, but if it's just replacing people who leave then it's nothing new. It turns out McDonald's turnover rate is pretty astonishing— it's 150% per year! That means that for every 100 jobs they have, they have to hire 150 new people every year. Even if we assume this 150% turnover figure applies to only the 1.2 million employees working at franchises, that means McDonald's has to hire at least 1.8 million people every year just to stay level. Dividing that by 4 for a very rough quarterly figure, that means 450,000 new hires every quarter, just to stay level. Viewed from that perspective this announcement of hiring 375,000 people looks like it's actually a staff reduction strategy.

So, is this supposedly positive economic news actually a stealthy way of announcing layoffs? I don't know. Technically, BTW, McDonald's wouldn't need to lay off workers as they have such a high turnover rate anyway. But the point is they could well be decreasing their staff overall.

The notion of a staff reduction makes sense if you look at what's happening at the restaurant level. In more and more places, ordering kiosks are being installed to replace human cashiers. It kind of sucks from a customer perspective, but hey, many restaurants are trying to replace people with self-service.

Temporary Home-Office Move

Yesterday the hammering and grinding started. Whump-whump-whump against the wall from next door. Then GrrrrRRRRrrrrrRRRRrrrRRRR. The both, with the grinding wailing away while the whump-ing kept the beat. Our neighbors are having their windows replaced, and workers were grinding through the stucco.

At first I just toughed through noise while working from home as it was mostly coming from the other side of the house. But then it moved to the side where my home-office is, echoing through a wall less than 10' from my desk. I grabbed my computer and moved to another room.

This morning the grinding and thumping started back up around 8:30am so I decided to move workstation temporarily. I moved to the corner of the living room, downstairs and to the other side of the house.



I've set up down here a few times in the past. It's kind of my "Summer Home... office" 😂, a place I retreat to occasionally when a summer heat wave makes the 3rd floor too hot during the day.. Last time I did it was a bit more fancy, with my spouse clearing off her crafting desk so I could set up my desk there. This time, because I only expect to be here for a day or two, I left her desk alone and simply set up my stuff atop a card table I hauled out of the garage.

One nice thing about this temporary setup is having the sliding glass door that opens onto our back patio there. I left the curtains closed this morning as the sun was shining in too strongly, but it's nice to open them for natural light after 11-noon or so when the sun rotates around the side of the house.

Speaking off 11-noon or so, when I went out for lunch today I spotted the workers climbing down off their ladders between tasks.



I chatted with them about the job being done. I mentioned the noise was disruptive but emphasized I wasn't asking them to stop; just to let me know what their schedule was. "Oh, we're done with the hammering," they assured me. "We just finished!'

So my temporary relocation may be very temporary. I could have moved back within an hour! 🤣 But I think I'll keep my temporary desk set up a bit longer, to enjoy the change of scenery. Already a few of my colleagues have remarked on seeing the different scene behind me on videoconferences. In addition to having the different scene myself, it's nice to be noticed.