Oregon McDonald’s Desperate for Staff: ‘Now Hiring 14 and 15-Year-Olds’

BATON ROUGE, LA - MAY 05: A now hiring sign is posted in front of a McDonalds restaurant o
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Katherine Hamilton

An Oregon McDonald’s decided to turn to young teenagers to fill jobs after having difficulty finding employees, the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday.

“There are always staffing issues, but this is unheard of,” the Biddle Road restaurant operator, Heather Coleman, told Insider.

Coleman placed a banner in front of her McDonald’s in Medford, Oregon, advertising that the franchise is hiring 14 and 15-year-old workers. She noted that young workers have been “a blessing in disguise,” and they have “drive and work ethic.”

“While raising the minimum wage to $15 didn’t bring in as many applicants as she’d hoped, opening the doors to 14- and 15-year-olds brought in about 25 new applications in two weeks,” Insider reported.

Coleman’s is not the only fast-food chain reportedly turning to younger workers to fill the void.

“The Texas chicken chain Layne’s Chicken Fingers is promoting workers in their teens and early 20s into management positions paying more than $50,000,” according to the report. “CEO Garrett Reed says he’s relying on 16- and 17-year old workers to run new stores because he was so short on older, more experienced staff.”

An Ohio Burger King earlier this year also advertised for young workers.

“Do you have a 14- or 15-year-old? Do they need a job?? We will hire them!” the sign read.

While each state has its own labor laws, 14 is the minimum age set for nonagricultural jobs by the Department of Labor. Fourteen and 15-year-olds are permitted to work in restaurants, though the number of hours is regulated by law.

Notably, a “record share” of U.S. small businesses had unfilled positions in August, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Fifty percent of firms had job openings that could not be filled last month, which was “up 1 percentage point from July and the largest share in monthly data back to 1986,” according to National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) data.

The report coincides with the Labor Department’s monthly labor assessment, which was released on Friday, showing President Joe Biden’s disastrous economy. Just 235,000 jobs were created in August, which was below forecasted numbers.

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