Chipotle pledges to hire 10,000 workers as it reopens dining rooms
Customers wait outside of a Chipotle restaurant as they wait to enter in order to place an order as Florida continues with its Phase 1 of reopening the state during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on May 19, 2020, in Aventura, FL.
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Chipotle Mexican Grill has pledged to hire 10,000 workers over the next several months.
In May, the company kicked off a new campaign to drive hiring, resulting in about 8,000 new employees to date. Chipotle said that it has received close to 700,000 job applications since the beginning of the year. It now has more than 85,000 workers nationwide.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the chain has been opening new locations and constructing drive-thru lanes. Later this month, it plans to open its hundredth “Chipotlane,” which require 50% more employees than a traditional location.
The summer months typically spark hiring for restaurants, but pledges like Chipotle’s arrive this year after millions of restaurant workers lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The U.S. unemployment rate is 11.1%, according to the Department of Labor.
While some fast-food chains have announced plans to hire thousands of new workers, the surge of new Covid-19 cases in some parts of the country and subsequent reclosure of restaurants could stop those plans. McDonald’s, for example, expected to hire 260,000 workers as it reopened its dining rooms. The chain has since paused reopening dining rooms for three weeks due to new cases.
