Tuesday, November 19

McDonald's hires 14-year-olds to tackle America's worker shortage


McDonald’s contrata a jóvenes de 14 años para afrontar la escasez de trabajadores en Estados Unidos

Photo: HOTLUNCHPAM / REDDIT / copyright

A McDonald’s location in Oregon, United States, is calling young people from 14 and 15 years to apply for restaurant employment amid an acute shortage of workers in the sector.

Fast food restaurants and other businesses throughout The country is having problems filling its vacancies, despite the fact that restrictions due to the pandemic are being relaxed.

Given this scenario, the franchise in the city of Medford put up a banner outside the venue two weeks ago, urging the younger crowd to come forward.

Since the restaurant made the offer, which complies with state labor laws, there has been a increase in job applications .

Heather Kennedy, who runs the Medford restaurant, told the publication n Business Insider that the current understaffing is “unprecedented” in the 40 years that his family has been running McDonald’s franchises.

At first, it tried to attract more workers by raising the restaurant’s minimum wage to US $ 15 the time, but this did not generate enough interest.

However, Kennedy said he received more than 25 new applications since it opened under 16 years.

Various initiatives

McDonald’s declined to comment on this move, but told the BBC that it is sharing its best practices manual for hiring with all of its franchises.

the adults not working so they after the kids now lmfaooo pic.twitter.com/4ovp3PsZzW

– trixie tang (@partynextweexnd) May 12, 2021

The company added that franchises have a range of measures in place to address staff shortages, including better salaries, bonuses for newcomers and new benefits such as care assistance. of children.

Additionally, McDonald’s recently announced that it will raise wages to reach an average d e US $ 15 per hour at your owned restaurants nationwide.

Labor protection for minors

McDonald’s is not the first fast food chain to ask young people to fill in staffing gaps.

Burger King and Wendy’s franchises placed similar ads recently.

And the Texas chain Layne’s Chicken Finfers is promoting teenage or early twenties employees to managerial positions, given the lack of more experienced workers.

United States labor laws vary from state to state.

In Oregon, as of 14 years people can work in non-hazardous jobs, such as hospitality, as long as their hours are limited s so that they can attend school and receive adequate rest time.

However, it seems to be somewhat unusual, as the average age of an employee McDonald’s in the U.S. is 27 years, according to data from the Zippia jobs site.

Local de Pollo Tropical en Miami
The Pollo Tropical restaurant chain offers in Miami a voucher of US $ 500 for those who want to work with them.


There is currently a pronounced lack of workers in the United States due to a combination of factors, such as fear of covid – 19, schools that remain closed and the lack of affordable child care that makes people decide to stay home.

Some economists also blame the situation on the generous benefits granted by the federal government during the pandemic, offering about US $ 300 extra every week, but these measurements have already been detained in many states.

Vacancies for lower-paying and lower-skilled jobs have been especially difficult to fill, prompting large companies like Walmart and Amazon to offer bonuses to staying employees and higher starting salaries.


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