McDonalds cuts jobs

McDonald's Corp., the world's largest restaurant company, said on Wednesday it would undertake a major restructuring of its U.S. business by consolidating regions and eliminating up to 700 corporate jobs in an effort to improve service. The company said it would streamline its U.S. regions to 21 from 37 and eliminate 500 to 700 field and home-office jobs to gain efficiencies. In addition, the company created new posts for five senior executives on its U.S. management team. McDonald's said the efforts will focus on supporting its U.S. franchisees. It assigned each region a general manager and a team that includes a vice president of quality, service and cleanliness. The teams will also include operations consultants that will spend more in restaurants, the company said. "The operators will get a lot more support where they really need it,"​ said company spokesman Walt Riker. "All of this is going to add up to better business, to better service to the customers."​ Bold moves had been expected from the fast-food giant, which has posted three consecutive quarters of profit decline and has struggled with waning consumer demand amid mad cow beef scares in Europe, as well as the impact of a strong U.S. dollar on overseas earnings. In the United States, McDonald's has been criticised for declining service levels. "It looks like they're focusing more on operations, which I definitely think is a plus,"​ said Salomon Smith Barney analyst Mark Kalinowski, who rates the shares a strong buy. "They definitely want to improve the restaurant-level experience."​ Shares of McDonald's were off 26 cents at $29.44 in late afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange.