Fast Food Restaurant Chain Brings Company Employees to Work in Restaurants – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports

(CNN) – National fast-food restaurant chain Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers is offering a new solution to the restaurant industry’s workforce shortage – it is asking company employees to work as cooks and cashiers.

The private company based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has a total of 750 employees, including 500 in its Dallas office. Of these, 250 will go to the field as frontline workers. Another 250 who work as marketers and trainers will move on to catering and recruiting jobs.

Employees will be accommodated in hotels for one to two weeks at the expense of the company. Other company employees will work to recruit more workers or work in one of the company’s more than 500 drive-thru departments.

“It’s all on deck,” said co-CEO and COO AJ Kumaran.

Most of the company’s employees will already have been trained as French fries cooks or cashiers, the company said.

Kumaran said he saw the effects of the labor shortage in mid-September, when job applications suddenly declined online.

“Very quickly we had to start cutting back on hours of operation, we had to cut back on some of our channels, like mobile orders and dining rooms,” Kumaran said.

Cane’s is looking to hire 10,000 more people in 50 days.

Kumaran also said Cane will invest $ 70 million in workers’ wages, with hourly workers receiving 15-22% wage increases over the next few weeks.

“This is obviously an unprecedented time, there is no manual on how to get by,” Kumaran said.

September marked the second consecutive month in which the U.S. economy added much less jobs than expected, after job growth slowed considerably in August. Hires at restaurants and bars fell as consumers avoided going out due to the Delta variant.

A September survey by the National Restaurant Association found that 78% of restaurant owners said they had experienced a drop in customer demand in recent weeks due to Delta variant issues.

Meanwhile, 71% of restaurants are understaffed while battling supply shortages, with almost all restaurants surveyed – 95% – saying they have experienced supply delays or food or drink shortages. keys over the past three months.

Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs for the National Restaurant Association, said, “Our nation’s restaurant recovery is officially being reversed.

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