Yahoo Finance Can you guess how many Australians have worked at McDonald’s?
One in 20 Australians have worked at McDonald’s, making the $184 billion company the largest youth employer in the country.
That’s 1.3 million people, or an incredible 5 per cent of the national population.
And the vast majority of those workers (1.04 million) were under the age of 25, research commissioned by McDonald’s released today revealed.
“At Macca’s, we’re so proud to be able to offer so many young Australians what is often their first job,” Jennifer St Ledger, McDonald’s Australia chief people officer, said.
“We take that responsibility very seriously and believe it is our privilege to provide them with the foundations to build skills for life, setting them up for future success.”
And the good news is 95 per cent of their current and previous employees believe working at the fast food chain actually helped them success in life.
“As employers are looking more and more for candidates with exceptional soft skills, on top of technical skills, we are adapting our training to ensure our restaurant employees are being given what they need to be successful,” Ledger said.
“We are constantly reviewing and adapting our training to ensure we are delivering on our commitment to help equip those working for us with the foundations for a great career, wherever that may be.”
Ledger also noted that McDonald’s offers courses and face-to-face training through the Charlie Bell School of Management in addition to on-the-job experience.
“Many of these courses provide our people with externally recognised qualifications that are not just relevant to their progression at McDonald’s, but to other career paths in the business, retail, food service or hospitality sectors,” she said.
World’s best employer?
McDonald’s is classed as one of the ‘World’s Best Employers of 2018’ by Forbes, but some workers may disagree.
McDonald’s Australia made headlines last year after it was accused of “churning” its workforce and cutting shifts for workers as they aged out of cheaper wage brackets.
However McDonald’s Australia chief executive officer Andrew Gregory denied the practice.
“We take it really seriously to do the right thing and uphold our employment standards,” he told the ABC in October.
More recently, a McDonald’s Australia franchisee was found to have criticised staff for requesting their paid 10-minute rest and water breaks, and threatened to ban the entitlements.
The manager told crew on Facebook that they wouldn’t receive the paid break if they worked less than four hours.
Muffin Break chief slammed on social media
McDonald’s Australia isn’t the only fast food chain which has come under criticism recently.
Just last week the Muffin Break Australia general manager Natalie Brennan ignited a controversy by complaining that “entitled” young Australians weren’t enthusiastically looking for opportunities to work for free at the fast food company.
“I’m generalising, but it definitely feels like this generation of 20-somethings has to be rewarded even if it’s the most mundane, boring thing, they want to be rewarded for doing their job constantly,” complained Brennan.
“There’s just nobody walking in my door asking for an internship, work experience or unpaid work, nobody.”
But Twitter responded by blasting her views.
“Millennials have had enough of being robbed. Robbed of wages, robbed of ever having a job with paid leave, robbed of ever owning a house. Good on them. Those doing the robbing had better watch out,” the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sally McManus responded.
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