Tight US Labor Market Prompts More Wage Hikes At Big Companies By John BIERS
05/13/21 AT 6:13 PM
McDonald s announced Thursday it will hike wages at US company-owned restaurants as it seeks another 10,000 employees, while Amazon launched a North American recruitment drive with signing bonuses of up to $1,000.
The inducements are the latest by big companies seeking to quickly staff up as the reopening US economy spurs a sudden uptick in consumer demand after the coronavirus-induced downturn.
The push to draw in more hourly workers come amid a pitched debate in Washington on whether US unemployment benefits have been extended too long and are now unnecessarily discouraging work at a time when Covid-19 vaccines are widespread.
Three out of five U.S. customers are interested in trying a premium chicken sandwich, according to recent survey from market researcher Datassential. That demand pushed U.S. sales at chicken-focused fast-food restaurants a category that includes Popeyes, KFC and Chick-fil-A to more than $32.2 billion in 2020, up 7.6% from a year earlier, according to market researcher Euromonitor International. U.S. sales at their burger-focused counterparts, on the other hand, dropped 2.9% to $113.8 billion in 2020.
By the time McDonald s rolled out its new offerings this year, the chicken sandwich war was well underway and the battlefield was crowded. Competitors like KFC, Burger King and even Taco Bell have launched crispy chicken items. They re all chasing Chick-fil-A, which is a growing competitive threat to McDonald s, and Popeyes, whose sandwich started the recent craze.
McDonald’s chicken sandwich
McDonald s new chicken sandwiches have sold well in their first two months on the menu, but they appear unlikely to overtake poultry leader Chick-fil-A.
The Chicago-based fast-food giant entered the chicken sandwich fray in late February, offering three takes on the new sandwiches: Crispy, Spicy and Deluxe, all served on a potato roll with various toppings. McDonald s franchisees had long asked for a sandwich that would compete with chicken stalwarts and tap the hottest menu trend in fast food.
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Three out of five U.S. customers are interested in trying a premium chicken sandwich, according to recent survey from market researcher Datassential. That demand pushed U.S. sales at chicken-focused fast-food restaurants a category that includes Popeyes, KFC and Chick-fil-A to more than $32.2 billion in 2020, up 7.6 percent from a year earlier, according to market researcher Euromonitor International. U.S. sales at their burger-focused counterparts, on th
The poultry paucity comes after a tumultuous year in the meat industry, with the coronavirus pandemic upending supply chains and infecting tens of thousands of workers.
It seems the poultry paucity has arrived, heralded by a series of fast-food executives describing in earnings calls their stores struggles to stock enough chicken - nuggets, tenders, wings, patties, all shapes and sizes - to keep pace with legions of peckish Americans. Demand for the new sandwich has been so strong that, coupled with general tightening in domestic chicken supply, our main challenge has been keeping up with that demand, said David Gibbs, CEO of Yum Brands, whose KFC restaurants recently rolled out a new fried-chicken sandwich. Charles Morrison, chairman and CEO of Wingstop, said this week that Suppliers are struggling, just as many in our industry are, to hire people to process chicken, thus placing unexpected pressure on the amount of birds that can be processed and negatively affecting supply of all parts of the chicken in the US, not just wings.