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Have you seen the news? McDonald’s is set to hire 50,000 new workers in one day (April 19). From Reuters:
(Reuters) – Fast-food chain McDonald’s Corp announced a one-day spring hiring spree aimed at fighting the use of the term “McJob” as shorthand for describing low-wage, dead-end work.The global restaurant chain said it plans to hire as many as 50,000 new U.S. employees — ranging from restaurant crew to managers — on April 19. The move would increase the hamburger company’s U.S. workforce by 7.7 percent to 700,000, but such hiring is typical in the lead up to the busy summer months.
Sounds great, right? Time to combat the image of the “McJobs” and show how those McDonald’s jobs can help folks reach that middle class dream.
Uh, not so fast there Bucky. From a bit further down in the linked article:
She added that McDonald’s hourly employees typically make more than minimum wage, often more than $8 per hour.…snip…
McDonald’s said it and its franchisees would be spending an extra $518 million on wages and salaries for the 50,000 new workers it plans to hire.
Now, if we do a bit of basic mathematics and divide $518M by 50,000 we have a whopping figure of $10,360, which isn’t even five dollars an hour for a forty hour week, 52 week year. So much for countering the “McJobs” image there. And since McDonald’s was one of the firms receiving a waiver from the HHS on the Health Care Reform back in October, any wagers on how many of these new employees would be receiving any health care benefits upon employment? No, I didn’t think so.
Of course, CNN went full cheerleader on the news:
This announcement from McDonald’s is just the latest sign of an improving job market. On Friday, the U.S. government announced a gain of 216,000 jobs in March, pushing the unemployment rate down to 8.8%, its lowest level in two years.
If we could just find a reasonable medium between the McJobs universe (or WalMart World if you will) and the world where we pay $1M per year for each soldier on the ground in Irak and Afghanistan. The world where taxes are cut for businesses (via the NY Times) and taxes are cut for the well-to-do (while maybe not millionaires, they are still in better financial position than the vast majority of the country – also via the NY Times) all while members of Congress propose cutting federal services $4 trillion over the next ten years. The same members of Congress that see nothing wrong with shutting down government services but continuing pay for themselves.
Snark fails.
And because I can:
Cross posted from Just A Small Town Country Boy
43 Comments
The numbers don’t add up, obviously. Will these even be full-time job? Or more like 25 hours a week(or something similar)?
Yeah, my not so much of a WAG is that is a best case and probably more along the lines of 20 hours per week. As it is, the $10,360 average works out to be right around $4.90 an hour for a 40 hour week, 52 week year. Since some of the positions are supposed to be “management” then they can’t be paying much more than the minimum wage for the bulk of the jobs.
Maybe they will pass Walmart as the nation’s biggest employer. If this is a condemnation of Obama/Clinton/Republican/FreeTrade restructuring of the American economy, I don’t know what is?
Thanks, recommended as usual.
See, electrical engineers and accountants? The job market is looking up – Mickey D’s is hiring. Just listen to CNN.
Financial numbers are often recorded in fiscal quarters, not full years. That might be why the math doesn’t add up.
Well I don’t know how many times you get told to eat organic and buy from a farmer’s market on liberal sites. And of course the endless bragging about how “they have NEVER set foot in one.” Great. You are superior. Of course that’s the way to go for health. But this is proof positive of the unrelenting cost of fresh food. McDonald’s is booming. It’s all the peons can afford to eat. Though I do love me a chicken snack wrap to tell you the truth.
The numbers are probably reflective of part-time work. I can’t see MickeyD’s wanting to pay dreaded *socialist* benefits, can you?? I’m sure the preponderance of their workforce is just part-time, so woo-woo on them beginning a hiring campaign. More rip-off of the serfs comin’ atcha!
Thanks for the post.
I’m pretty sure the numbers provided have nothing to do with how they are reported in quarterly reports for Wall St and the SEC – they don’t add up as they don’t support the contention in the articles about how McDonald’s is going to be creating all these wonderful jobs, even though the figures provided are for parttime jobs paying barely more than minimum wage
It’s a hell of a lot cheaper to cook for myself than it could ever be eating out at McDonald’s, but that’s just me.
And I’m one of the long term underemployed working parttime.
So folks,,,
If you’re sick & tired of saying “Paper or Plastic?” all day
Now is your BIG Opportunity to
Move up to saying …
“Do you want to Super-Size that?”,
all day
{ Make sure you aren’t eating when you see this } The Yes Men’s reBurger
She added that McDonald’s hourly employees typically make more than minimum wage, often more than $8 per hour.
The average employee either quits or stays long enough to get a raise.
Now, if we do a bit of basic mathematics and divide $518M by 50,000 we have a whopping figure of $10,360, which isn’t even five dollars an hour for a forty hour week, 52 week year.
New hires typically don’t get 40 hrs a week at best thirty highschool kids, people working 2 jobs and retirees tend to get even less hours more like 20 hours a week.
Can we get numbers of what these employees will be paid I’m guessing all the new hires start at minimum wage.
That’ll cover Harvard grads but what about the rest of us?
Given how many stores McDonalds has 50,000 might just be what the McDonalds chain normally hires in a month. This smells like a bad PR scam.
The only way to fight McJobs is to pay people more and give all the workers healthcare.
How many fulltime McD’s workers on Welfare or getting other government cash?
Wallmarts numbers would also be good.
Based on the 14k “locations” mentioned in the Reuters article, it works out to 3 to 4 new hires per location.
How many pregnant women many teens working full time at McDonalds eat the food and gain weight which leads to diabetes, heart attacks, increased cancer risks etc.
Ever seen a Pregnant woman eat working all day at McD’s imagine the film “Super Size Me” where a guy eats nothing but McD’s for a month and his health gets real bad now imagine a pregnant woman eating McD’s at work and taking McD’s food home because she is trying to save on her food bill (McD’s does not pay much so corners have to get cut) throughout her entire pregnancy.
I saw that happen twice in the wealthy burbs to two White girls its not just dark people who get the shaft at McD’s.
I would think we should find a woman who works at McD’s and film her pregnancy and monitor her health as she eats McD’s every day if not every meal.
Sure its unethical but it happens every day at how many McD’s stores nation wide?
Someone has to tell people whats going on.
So then this is a publicity stunt my guess is they let go of some immigrant workers quietly.
CNN should point out how the unemployment numbers are low because so many people are working part time but want need full time work or just haven’t found jobs for so long they are not counted in the unemployment numbers any more.
CNN is dishonest in their reporting they have staff if a blogger like me can find this stuff out and CNN’s staff can’t then why do they have jobs and I’m unemployed?
McD’s has been fined how many millions during the Bush Obama years for hiring illegals?
Do they really want us looking at their McJobs from every angle?
Warren Buffet owns huge numbers of McD’s shares he could insist they get healthcare and paid a living wage! All jobs should pay a living wage when did they make slavery legal again?
I can’t believe the White Power people defend corporations who treat THEM like the N word.
I guess Aristotle was right maybe some people are naturally slaves any White Power person or Tea Bagger works for less than a living wage and defends not raising he minimum wage, defends tax cuts for the rich and argues against healthcare for themselves is a willing slave.
TCU,
Pigs happy living shit? Politicians are masters at getting people to vote against their interests all the time!
Whatever the wage increase works out to, it won’t offset increases in the cost of food and energy, neither of which is a discretionary purchase. Where I live, gas is almost $4 a gallon and up half a buck since the beginning of the year.
If the peons stick to the dollar menu, they can afford to eat under the Golden Arches. Otherwise, they’re candidates for wallet fatigue. “Value meal” is right up there with “compassionate conservative” on the list of oxymorons.
“She added that McDonald’s hourly employees typically make more than minimum wage, often more than $8 per hour.”
What a sad, sad, sad statement. And I’ll bet this person made this statement with a smile.
When $8 an hour is more than the minimum wage in a country that shuold have a minimum wage about twice that and someone can make the above statement with a smile, it really is a sad sad sad time we’re living in.
Thanks for reminding me, its time to apply for food stamps.
$8.00 per hour is slave wage. Now fill your gas tank twice in one week @ just under four dollars per gallon and your working for $4.00 and change per hour for 32 hours of a 40 hour week? This is rape!
Yes Tammanytiger, you are spot on. Ironic, slaves gutted for their uncompensated labor, energy????? I see we have come a long way as Americans waste billions of dollars of economic value, about .80 cents of every dollar spent on gas collectively. Today America wasted @ 9 million dollars of economic value out the tailpipe. Yes slaves and energy. To bad America has not figured this out yet! Servitude to corporate America, just like slave to his master!
Those same pols seem to have suicidal tendencies just look how they handle the economy, wars everything once they get their slaves just how they want them.
Its almost like they they can’t ever be happy they self sabotage.
Would you prefer they were laying off people as opposed to hiring?
I thought I was voteing for the interest of the working class in 2008.We voted for Obama and gave him a Democratic House and Senate.Will not vote for this same bunch of Incumbents.Where the push to raise the minimum wage to a liveable wage?Maybe there should be an extra tax on business owners paying less than liveable wages.
Expect Obama’s campaign to quickly replace “Are You In?” with “Ya Want Fries With That Recovery?”
“half a loaf is better than none”
I’m with you OFG.
What’s worse is that as they brag about creating barely minimum wage part-time jobs with no benefits, the MSM eats it up as if something wonderful is going on.
I wonder how many people who had managed to work their way through a couple of raisees got laid of to create those open positions.
Hmmm…. that’s a fair question…. let me think…
Would I rather fascist slave owners offer to accept more slaves or let some of the current slaves go????
I gotta admit OG, in this fucked up economic environment we’re living in right now, that’s a fair question.
Sorry to say I don’t have an answer, except that I would prefer such a question never need be asked.
Division is overrated
Actually more at play, but basically the heart of it. The more at play part is that many of those part time jobs will go to undocumented/illegal immigrants. I read an article by a union organizer maybe early late 80′s/early 90′s who wrote about how illegal immigrants came to dominate so much of the fast food employee pool, and it has to do with those dreaded socialist benefits.
The fast food industry basically grew up in the 70s/80s. As the teenagers who worked them graduated from high school, may returned to the fast food jobs to earn money for school, get extra cash, as a way-station full time job until they moved onto something else.
But here is the problem, that work force which emerged out of the early years wanted full time hours or extended hours. In addition, seniors looking to make some extra money began to work in the places. I remember in the early 80′s that whenever I went into a fast food place, the number of older workers. Gone now.
But guess what happens when workers hit 40 hours? Yup, laws concerning benefits, overtime, etc. go into effect.
So the fast food industry turned to a work force that would take reduced hours and be easily intimidated, and which could replace the growing full-time work force.
I hear your point, but there is no such beast as a full time 40-hour a week fast food worker. They are deliberately given less hours to avoid labor laws about overtime, etc. In fact, being sent home early is a common practice at fast food places.
Whoopee! So many more McJobs!!!