McDonald’s Hammers Its Workers

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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McDonald’s Hammers Its Workers

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McDonald’s told some of its workers to stay home. It wanted to fire them remotely. It is not exactly a proud day for management, which might have had the courage to do it face-to-face.

According to NPR, “As part of a much larger company restructuring, McDonald’s Corp. has recently informed its employees about the impending layoffs and has temporarily closed all of its U.S. offices this week.” McDonald’s CEO says he expects a recession. He added that low-income customers are not spending as much money as they used to.
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In its most recently released quarter, same-store sales rose 12% worldwide compared to the same month a year ago. McDonald’s is doing very well. Revenue for the period was flat at $6 billion. Net income rose 16% to $1.9 billion. McDonald’s is doing very well. (They are planning to sell donuts.)

The recession excuse seems thin. Management’s comments about the future were very bullish.

Why are layoffs across many industries so large in the last several months? One reason is an expected recession. The other is that companies have “over-hired,” a code word for bad management.

McDonald’s has shown it is often not hit hard by the recession. Cost-conscious customers eat there because they can get inexpensive meals. (These are the most valuable food brands in the world.)
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While layoffs are awful for employees, when they are done remotely, it signals that it is not even worth management’s time to take a day with departing workers. This means they can be dispensed of dispassionately. It has become a new habit of large companies, which is shameful.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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