McDonald's closes offices for three days as it prepares for a wave of layoffs

McDonald's Corp. will keep its offices in the country closed this week as it carries out a corporate restructuring that involves a wave of layoffs, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Through an internal email, the fast food chain informed its employees that they should work from home from Monday to Wednesday as the company makes key decisions related to roles and staffing levels:

The company asked the workers to cancel all meetings they had scheduled with suppliers in person and refused to comment on the number of employees to be laid off or the reasons for the decision.

McDonald's to make "difficult" decisions

In January, the mega-company's CEO Chris Kempczinski stated that he planned to make "difficult" decisions that would entail changes in corporate staffing levels by April. He noted that they would conduct a workforce assessment in order to save money.

Kempczinski insisted that they had no fixed dollar amount or stipulated number of employees to lay off:

Several rounds of layoffs in recent years

The corporation has made several rounds of layoffs in recent years. In 2018, the company justified the layoffs by saying it was seeking to become a "more dynamic, agile and competitive" company. At that time they were looking to reduce $500 million in administrative expenses for 2019.

The reduction of personnel has been progressive. In 2017, the company employed 235,000 people worldwide. In 2019, the figure had already dropped to 205,000. The burger giant currently employs just more than 150,000 people worldwide in corporate roles and its own restaurants, with 70% of them located outside the U.S.