Not all restaurant companies are laying off employees.
As consumers stay home and practice social distancing, pizza chains are expected to see a surge in business. With many of them hurting for workers going into the coronavirus shock, those chains are taking steps to remind people they have job openings.
Domino’s Pizza, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based pizza giant, said Thursday that the company and its franchisees have plenty of positions open for delivery drivers, pizza makers, customer service representatives and managers.
The company also said that its supply chain centers in the U.S. are hiring.
“With many local, state and federal rules closing dine-in restaurants, the opportunity to keep feeding our neighbors through delivery and carryout means that a small sense of normalcy is still available to everyone,” Domino’s CEO Ritch Allison said in a statement. “Our corporate and franchise stores want to make sure they’re not only feeding people but also providing opportunity to those looking for work at this time, especially those in the heavily impacted restaurant industry.”
Domino’s isn’t the only one.
Jet’s Pizza, a 386-unit franchise based in Sterling Heights, Mich., said Thursday it is hiring at its restaurants in 20 states, noting in a release that drivers make between $13 and $16 an hour.
Jet’s notes that it has job openings for anyone who finds themselves out of work as a result of the coronavirus shock, particularly for drivers.
For pizza chains, the sudden availability of workers is a potential silver lining: Finding available drivers just a month ago was difficult at best, as the influx of so many third-party delivery companies ramped up competition for drivers.
That competition was so intense, in fact, that Papa John’s began working with third-party delivery companies in part to help extend its ability to make deliveries. “We think that they can help us, both through customer acquisition, as well as productivity and throughput during our highest peak periods, as they offer more drivers to be able to take our orders,” CEO Rob Lynch said in November, according to a transcript on financial services site Sentieo.
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