McDonald's hoping to hire 1,000 workers in Southland for summer

McDonald's is looking to hire 1,000 Southern California employees for its busy summer season as fast food workers statewide call for higher wages.

Interested job seekers can apply at local McDonald's locations. They also can go to jobs.mchire.com for more details or text “apply” to 38000 to start an application via text.

The hiring spree comes in the wake of a new report from Economic Roundtable, which shows that 1 in 17 homeless people in California work in the fast food industry.

“The fast food industry is a poverty employer, with a larger share of its workers in poverty than any other industry,” the study says.

All low-wage workers face some level of risk that they will become homeless, the report said, but the risk is compounded in the fast food industry as a result of low wages, part-time work and employee churn.

“These interlocking hazards undercut workers' ability to pay their rent,” the report said.

California's minimum wage is $15.50 an hour, but fast-food employees and supporters hope to raise that via Assembly Bill 257, also known as the FAST Recovery Act.

The legislation — which has been sidelined until the Nov. 2024 election — would create a 10-person, state-run council to negotiate wages, hours and working conditions for the more than half a million fast-food workers in California.

It would establish an initial minimum wage of up to $22, with capped annual increases at restaurants with more than 100 locations nationwide.

The measure was signed into law Sept. 5 by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But Save Local Restaurants — a coalition of fastfood franchisees and franchisors who oppose the measure — gathered enough signatures to place a referendum on the 2024 ballot.

Data from Indeed.com show some McDonald's jobs in California exceed the state's $15.50-an-hour base wage. A crew leader, for example, earns $16.55 an hour, while an assistant makes $15.92 an hour and a production worker earns an hourly wage of $16.23.

Another report from the UC Riverside School of Business suggests AB 257 could boost fast-food prices by as much as 30% and shift consumption to other parts of the food-delivery network, including full-service restaurants and grocery stores.

The study also suggests labor costs could increase by 30% to 50%, resulting in 28,000 to 46,000 job losses and the closure of 1,100 to 1,800 fast-food locations statewide.