Try not to read that title aloud in a Jerry Seinfeld voice.
There’s no denying that recessionary fears are resulting in sometimes necessary cost-cutting strategies for businesses across the globe. And there’s no way around budgetary concerns when the economy is still at an unsettled point only three-and-a-half months into 2023. Layoffs are an unfortunate attribute of the corporate arena, in which headcount is reduced in mass quantities as a result of poor performance, market conditions (like we’re experiencing today), a global health crisis (hello, pandemic), and a slew of other reasons.
The world’s biggest and most popular fast-food chain will always weather whatever storm they face, but even McDonald’s has limitations on how they can operate in an uncertain economic climate. Alongside global organizations like Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Meta, Google, etc., the golden arches now faces their turn in the “let’s reduce headcount to save dough” game that so many other enterprises have faced over the past several months.
While layoffs can be heartbreaking and disruptive, they are a cost of business. No one would fault McDonald’s or any other large global entity for slashing their workforce in 2023’s rocky economic road. However, there’s a very, very fine line between a layoff and cruelty…a line that McDonald’s crossed just this past week.
We’re not lovin’ this. At all.
As stated above, yeah, layoffs sometimes need to occur for a business to move forward. Especially in the world we’re living in today. Although costs need to be front-and-center, there’s a right way to conduct layoffs and a completely, erratically wrong way to do so. Guess which way McDonald’s chose?
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