Last week, McDonald’s Corp. announced that it was closing its corporate headquarters in anticipation of what many expected was to be an announcement of layoffs.
This week, those plans became clear, as the burger maker revealed that the layoffs would number in the hundreds and cut across a wide swath of the staff at headquarters and elsewhere.
“Companies across the U.S. economy are shedding jobs, often white-collar positions, amid concerns about a potential recession. Layoffs that began in the tech sector last year have spread to other industries, with companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Amazon.com Inc. recently trimming their ranks,” according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Among those laid off were senior employees who had worked at McDonald’s for decades as well as those who held positions at the company for just a few years, the WSJ article reported.
Before the layoffs, McDonald’s employed more than 150,000 people globally in corporate roles and in its company-owned restaurants, with 70% of them located outside the U.S., the chain said in February, also according to the article.