The Golden Arches of McDonald’s have been a staple in communities and at interstate stops for decades.
Serving low-priced hamburgers, milkshakes, and french fries at first, but has been expanding their menu to fit the individual markets their corporate or franchised stores are located in.
With a rapidly growing number of new competitors in the burger space, Mcdonald’s developed a $1 menu and has been offering $1 soft drinks to keep their customer counts increasing.
In the “old” America, fast food chains, like McDonald’s would regularly employ high school and college students. These jobs provided work experience for the young Americans while providing the restaurant with minimum wage part-time labor without expensive benefits costs.
This formula appears to no longer be working for the McDonald’s burger empire. Politicians have mishandled immigration, some intentionally, and the COVID-19 stimulus and extended unemployment payments have encouraged workers to stay at home.
As a result, McDonald’s has been forced to raise menu prices as worker wages climb, as well as close down some restaurants due to labor shortages and slower service in some locations.
The burger giant is raising menu prices in order to sustain the rapidly growing costs of supplies and wages, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report indicated that the company had increased salaries by at least ten percent this year alone.
As with thousands of other businesses, McDonald’s is struggling to recruit enough workers to staff their front counter and kitchen positions so the stores can operate their entire schedule, even as the chain offers higher pay, executives said.
Average wage increases at McDonald’s U.S. restaurants have continued from the company’s second quarter, when executives reported they were up around 5% domestically during the period. Higher wages, including an average 15% increase this year at company-owned U.S. restaurants, is helping, but not as much as anticipated, executives said.
McDonald’s though struggling, has always been an innovator in their industry.
With their research predicting a shortage of workers, even with millions of illegal aliens in the workforce under false IDS, the burger giant invested a small fortune in developing and installing self-serve kiosks at hundreds of their stores.
In addition, they invested in a drive-through AI software company to reduce the number of human workers needed to serve the thousands of hungry customers getting their meals on the go.
CNBC reports:
The Apprente technology uses AI to understand drive-thru orders. This summer, McDonald’s tested the tech in a handful of Chicago restaurants. Kempczinski said that the test showed “substantial benefits” to customers and employees.
“Certainly I was hoping and expecting that we were going to see the situation improve maybe a little bit more quickly than what’s materialized,” chief executive Chris Kempczinski told investors Wednesday.
The company is also paying more for paper, food, and other supplies, executives said. McDonald’s expects its costs for the year to rise by 3.5% to 4%, up from the 2% they grew earlier in 2021, executives said.
I don’t go to McDonald’s that often but I sure would miss them if they closed too many stores removing them as an option the next time I have a craving for their awesome french fries.
Eric Thompson is a syndicated political writer and Christian podcaster.
