For here or to go: Senior citizens are replacing teens as fast-food workers
When you think of the typical employee at fast food restaurants, most likely thoughts of teenagers, angst, and even acne pop into your head. Mostly because teenagers were more likely to man the McDonald registers than anyone other demographic.
Nowadays, Brad Hamilton, the teen played by Judge Reinhold in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, would probably be too young to work at the fictional Captain Hook Fish and Chips. That’s because senior citizens are taking his place — donning polyester, flipping patties, and taking orders. They’re showing up at casual dining chains such as Bob Evans and fast-food operators such as McDonald’s, which says it plans to make senior citizens one hiring focus in the coming year.
Restaurants are recruiting in senior centers and churches. They’re placing want ads on the website of AARP, an advocacy group for Americans over 50. Recruiters say older workers have soft skills — a friendly demeanor, punctuality — that younger workers sometimes lack, writes Leslie Patton for Bloomberg.
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Stevenson Williams, 63, manages a Church’s Chicken in North Charleston, S.C. He’s in charge of 13 employees, having worked his way up from a cleaning and dishwashing job he started about four years ago and sometimes works as many as 70 hours a week when it’s busy. Williams is a retired construction worker and had never worked at a restaurant before but was bored staying at home.
“It’s fun for a while, not getting up, not having to punch a clock, not having to get out of bed and grind every day,” he says. “But after working all your life, sitting around got old, there’s only so many trips to Walmart you can take. I just enjoy Church’s Chicken. I enjoy the atmosphere, I enjoy the people.”
Hiring seniors is a good deal for fast-food chains. They get years of experience for the same wages — an industry median of $9.81 an hour last year, according to the BLS — they would pay someone decades younger. This is a considerable benefit in an industry under pressure from rising transportation and raw-material costs.
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