Fast food workers offered $6,000.00 'Signing Bonus'

[Sam]

Interesting...Anyone wonder what that "double whopper with cheese and bacon hold the mayo"( or whatever...after all you get it your way, supposedly) is going to cost now???

Maybe they will have a special on the alleged "anti muslim" ice cream while they are at it...

Meanwhile people have to eat, maybe they will get a bonus for asking, "Do you want fries with that?" and "Can I SUPERSIZE that order for you?"


"Hold the pickles,Hold the lettuce, Special orders don't upset us.........."

Note part time workers are offered a $3,000.00 signing bonus.

I do give the company an A+++ for helping people out....but think about it......how many people have the currency to afford anything.....okies quite a few people actually do... but ... granted numerous people are employed for the clean up and cleaning out and rebuilding.....give with one hand and take with the other like the old mining towns....

ALOT of things to consider and think about....
*************************************************************

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/ ... 10_05.html


Fast-food restaurants hungry for workers

One store offering $6,000 'signing bonus'

By Keith Darcé
Business writer

A cutthroat, post-hurricane labor market has sent wages skyrocketing in the fast-food industry and prompted some of the New Orleans region's biggest chains to offer workers thousands of dollars in signing bonuses, perks typically associated with higher-paying white-collar jobs.


Burger King recruiters have been visiting federal disaster recovery centers and newly reopened high schools offering a $6,000 bonus, paid in monthly installments, to anyone promising to work full-time at a metropolitan New Orleans restaurant for at least a year. New part-time workers are being offered $3,000 bonuses.

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits has increased hourly pay for cashiers and cooks from just over the federal minimum wage of $5.15 to more than $8, a jump of more than 50 percent.

"I've been in the (fast-food restaurant) business for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this," said Glen Helton, president and chief operating officer of Strategic Restaurant Acquisition Corp., the California company that owns the 54 Burger King stores in metropolitan New Orleans.

Strategic Restaurant has reopened about half of its stores and is ready to open 13 more, but it can't until it hires about 500 more workers, Helton said.

Almost overnight, Hurricane Katrina transformed the bottom reaches of the region's economy from an employer's market where low-wage earners had few options for advancement to a worker's market where job opportunities, and higher pay, abound.

Like many other businesses, fast-food restaurants are struggling to assemble enough workers to reopen stores in Jefferson Parish and parts of New Orleans that escaped devastating floods.

Many evacuated workers have resettled in other cities or can't return because their homes were ruined. Strategic Restaurant, which had a pre-storm work force of about 2,700 in the metro area, has lost about 1,271 front-line workers and 65 managers from the local market, Helton said. Many workers who are willing to return to their old jobs aren't able to come home yet, he said. To make matters worse, competition has exploded for the unskilled and low-skilled workers favored by the fast-food industry. Every employer operating in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is chasing after the same pool of workers, he said. "Now the job market includes anybody doing relief work at $15 an hour. ... Everyone is looking for general laborers, and they are drawing from our normal work force," Helton said.

The changes promise to put larger amounts of money into the wallets and purses of the region's working poor.

Before the storm, a fast-food restaurant employee could expect to earn just over the federal minimum wage of $5.15 as a part-time worker. That would result in take-home pay of $8,000 to $12,000 a year.

Now, that same employee can make as much as $8.50 an hour and work a full-time schedule with regular amounts of overtime hours each week. Retention and referral bonuses for bringing in new workers can raise the worker's yearly income above $20,000.

The higher wages should stick even after the initial post-storm hiring frenzy stabilizes, because the local labor pool will likely remain tight for years to come, said Z.R. Pasby, regional director of operations for Popeyes.

Helton agreed. "I think (wages) will level off, but it will never be a minimum-wage market again," he said. But those wage gains could be eroded if rising pay rates and other factors create inflation in the region and lead to higher costs for food, housing, utilities and other necessities.

So far, Burger King and Popeyes stores have resisted passing on their higher labor costs to customers by raising prices.

"A Whopper cost $2.39 before the storm and $2.39 after the storm," Helton said.

But that could change down the road, especially if fuel prices continue to rise and if higher wages in the area put more disposable income in the pockets of customers, the fast-food managers said.

"Someone has to foot the bill," Pasby said. Keith Darcé can be reached at kdarce@yahoo.com.

[redwinemaker]

Interesting. Here in CA, McDonalds pays min wage ($6.75/hr) while In-N-Out Burger pays $9.00.

At McDonalds, you have to ask the drive-thru attendant to repeat the order, sometimes several times due to the heavy south-of-the-border accent. The restaurants are dirty and the staff is surly. Orders are wrong about 25% of the time.

At In-N-Out, the staff is helpful and friendly, they wear their uniforms with pride, English is the language of the day, orders are 100% accurate and the restaurant is always clean.

I guess you get what you pay for ...

[Ilph]

I hope the two workers I saw at a local McDonald's fighting in the parking lot didn't get any extra money....

[ToplessRideFL]

Hospitals and Large Law Firms have been doing sign ons for years.... But considering the article about NOLA....interesting to think right now I have a spot for a Pharmacist in NOLA (95k- 118k) and the sign on is 10k over 2 yrs. (lumps sums @ 30 days, 9mth, 18 mth and 24mth)... Hmm and Mickey Ds is paying 6k.... WOW!

[Ol'_'96'er]

Hospitals and Large Law Firms have been doing sign ons for years.... But considering the article about NOLA....interesting to think right now I have a spot for a Pharmacist in NOLA (95k- 118k) and the sign on is 10k over 2 yrs. (lumps sums @ 30 days, 9mth, 18 mth and 24mth)... Hmm and Mickey Ds is paying 6k.... WOW!

locally, you can make up to $10/hour working at McD's for certain shifts (opens and closes). While not good money or hours, it is better than minimum wage. In some ways, this could be one of the better things to happen to address the 1/3 of the NO population living below the poverty line.

[ToplessRideFL]

locally, you can make up to $10/hour working at McD's for certain shifts (opens and closes). While not good money or hours, it is better than minimum wage. In some ways, this could be one of the better things to happen to address the 1/3 of the NO population living below the poverty line.

If people are willing to work... I am all for paying them fairly!

[Sam]

I dunno about Mc'D's but the article was about BURGER KING paing a $6K signing bonus....and the article said the price of the whopper would be the same as it was before the storm.......

ToplessRide, I know many hospitals and of other companies offer signing bonuses and other incentives and have done such for many years..... I have seen some incredible signing bonuses for nurses( usually R.N. but nice ones for LPNs too) for example.

This is the first time I have ever seen "fast food" places offering such a signing bonus. I agree it does seem odd that a pharmicist with all the education and responsibility is offered $10K and someone asking "Do you want fries with that?" is offered $3K for a parttime position and $6K for a fulltime position.
No matter the job or the bonus, the people are working...and they provide the service.

I cannot agree more with your statement about paying people that are willing to work fairly.
Perhaps it is B.K.'s way of putting money back into people that lost so much and help the community...

Maybe now those with a liberal arts degree can finally pay back their student loans....

[creeky]

5.50 an hour? wow ........ that is LOW!