McDonald’s is closing its offices and preparing to lay off workers

“During the week of April 3, we will inform key decisions about roles and staffing levels across the organization,” the Chicago-based company said in the letter, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A McDonald’s spokesperson confirmed the decision to The Washington Post but declined to share any additional information, including how many people will be laid off.

McDonald’s joins a growing cadre of companies that have reduced positions in recent months. The cuts have been deeper among tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Salesforce, Microsoft and Google, all of whom have hired heavily during the pandemic. But recent layoffs have been pouring in from companies outside of tech, including J. Crew, 3M, Dow and Disney.

The burger giant has 150,000 employees from its corporate and non-franchise restaurant workforce. More than half of these employees work outside the United States.

The layoffs come as McDonald’s embarks on a restructuring plan, “Arches Acceleration 2.0,” in which the company aims to open more restaurants in response to growing demand. The company already has more than 38,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries, according to it website. The company plans to add 1,900 sites in 2023, Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden said on a call with investors in January.

McDonald’s has benefited from recent inflationary pressures, reporting in January that customers are turning to restaurants more often because they are looking for inexpensive meals. The burger giant has posted two consecutive quarters of growing domestic traffic, even as restaurants and other retailers have suffered slowdowns amid widespread inflation. In its latest update, the company said its global comparable sales rose 10.9 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year. Earnings report.

“In general, the consumer, whether it’s in Europe or in the United States, is actually holding up better than we would have expected a year or six months ago,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempzynski said in January on the company’s earnings call.

The restructuring plan aims to “modernize” the ways McDonald’s operates and help the company “scale innovations faster than ever before” to keep up with growing demand, Kempzinski said in a statement. message employees at that time.

Higher menu prices and strong menu innovation by McDonald’s helped boost traffic and customer transactions, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of analytics firm GlobalData. But the company still faces a significant amount of cost pressure that is causing it to streamline its operations.

With these layoffs, Saunders said, McDonald’s is “essentially weathering potential stresses” on its business.

Fast food prices rose about 13 percent last year, outpacing increases in the cost of groceries, according to price listwhich tracks prices for US fast food companies and other popular businesses.

Shares of McDonald’s rose 0.8 percent in trading on Monday after news of imminent layoffs.