With 95% of the McDonald’s restaurants being franchised, mandatory two-week paid sick leave would put an extra financial burden on operators as the effects of COVID-19 eat away at the margins of restaurants big and small.
Last week, McDonald’s announced that it will pay two weeks paid leave to workers at corporate-owned restaurants who are asked to quarantine for 14 days. The company told Restaurant Dive that it and many of its franchisees already offered full- and part-time workers up to five days of paid time off each year. But this new benefit impacts less than 5% of McDonald’s workforce, which totaled around 205,000 employees last year, according to Statista data.
