McDonald’s CEO Warns Layoffs for Corporate Staff Are Coming

A McDonald's restaurant in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 27, 2022. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski revealed in a memo to staff on Friday that he is planning to cut some corporate staff as part of the company’s new business strategy.

The fast-food giant CEO said the job cuts are intended to help the company innovate faster and work more efficiently.

“We will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead,” Kempczinski wrote.

“Certain initiatives will be de-prioritized or stopped altogether. This will help us move faster as an organization, while reducing our global costs and freeing up resources to invest in our growth.”

Mcdonald's chain restaurant in Middletown, Del., on July 26, 2019. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday, Kempczinski said “some jobs that are existing today are either going to get moved or those jobs may go away.”

He told the outlet that he expects to save money as part of the staffing changes, but does not have a set amount of jobs to be cut or money that needs to be saved.

McDonald’s plans to inform affected workers by April 3.

“Today, we’re divided into silos with a center, segments, and markets,” Kempczinski wrote. “This approach is outdated and self-limiting—we are trying to solve the same problems multiple times, aren’t always sharing ideas and can be slow to innovate.”

McDonald’s current organization is divided into three segments: the United States, internationally operated markets, and international developmental licensed markets. The company operates in 119 markets across the world.

McDonald’s also plans to speed up its development plans for new restaurants.

“We must accelerate the pace of our restaurant openings to fully capture the increased demand we’ve driven over the past few years,” Kempczinski said in the memo.

He also added: “While there’s a lot for us to be proud of, you’ve also told us that there’s more we can do. We’re performing at a high level, but we can do even better.”

McDonald’s employed around 200,000 corporate staff and workers at company-owned restaurants at the end of 2021, according to its latest annual report. More than 75 percent of them were based outside of the United States. More than two million people work at McDonald’s franchised locations around the world.

Some of America’s largest companies have announced layoffs in recent weeks, including Amazon, Salesforce, and Goldman Sachs.