Some National Chains Require Incentives to Grow
May 31, 2021
As the pandemic has begun to subside, many chain restaurants have announced expansion plans to new locations as they return to their more lucrative business models.
Despite these plans, some chains are reporting that labor is hard to find and are taking necessary steps to attract the needed employees.
For example, Chipotle announced plans to raise the average hourly wage to $15 an hour, with starting crew pay ranging from $11 to $17 an hour, in an effort to increase their hiring by 20,000 employees by the end of June 2021.
Tyler Benson, Chipotle’s manager of external communications, spoke to the massive amounts of labor the company was planning to add and the company’s plans for the future.
Benson said, “We are seeing increased staffing needs to meet our current demand, and we are building our teams for future growth. We have 2,800 restaurants today, and we plan to have 6,000 restaurants in the future.”
To deliver that growth, Chipotle has added benefits to attract workers as the company emerges from the pandemic-related restrictions. Specifically, Chipotle has increased the availability of advancement opportunities for entry-level workers. In addition, the company has added a $200 bonus for crew members and a $750 bonus for general managers and apprentices if they are able to refer a new employee, reflecting Chipotle’s immediate need for more workers.
Even so, Benson did still maintain that some workers were not ready to resume their jobs. Talking about a variety of factors, Benson focused on the commonly-cited reasons for workers not returning to their positions.
“Parts of the country are at different stages of recovery, and we have heard anecdotally that some people are not ready to return to work due to childcare or health concerns. Other people are not in a hurry to get back to work due to the availability of generous stimulus money and unemployment benefits,” Benson said.