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Taco Bell, Pizza Hut cutting ‘hundreds’ of jobs
November 12th, 2008, 12:46 pm · 37 Comments · posted by Nancy Luna, Staff Writer
Protesters outside Taco Bell's Irvine office (2005)
Updated 1:45 p.m. and 4:25 p.m. Nov. 12 and 8:50 a.m. Nov. 13.
Yum Brands, the parent company of Irvine-based Taco Bell, told the Associated Press today that it plans to eliminate hundreds of jobs at its corporate headquarters. Layoffs are also targeted at Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.
In a statement sent to the Orange County Register this afternoon, company spokesman Rob Poetsch said the layoffs are being made to improve the company’s cost structure.
“We’re taking action to improve our cost structure to operate more efficiently and put resources against our highest growth opportunities,” the company said. “We have eliminated some positions on projects or work that isn’t integral to our growth strategy, and we do not plan to fill open headcount. As we make these changes, we will ensure that those who are affected are treated with respect and dignity.”
At 4 p.m., Taco Bell President Greg Creed released this statement about the job cuts, and any impacts to restaurant-level employees.
“As Taco Bell realigns for growth, approximately 10% of our headquarters and above-restaurant employees have been affected, either through job cuts, changes or moves to another brand within Yum. None of our restaurant-based employees have been impacted,” Creed said. “It is always difficult when good people—our friends and colleagues—are faced with a job change. We are providing support to these employees including severance regardless of tenure, continuation of medical benefits, outplacement services and employee, family and financial planning assistance.”
On Thursday morning, Yum spokesman Jonathan Blum declined to answer questions regarding number of layoffs and departments targeted.
In an AP report published Wednesday, Blum said that a couple hundred more positions are being shifted from Yum’s corporate headquarters in Louisville to the company’s brands. “The restructuring is part of Yum’s strategy to sell more company-owned stores to franchisees,” he said.
Earlier this week, Taco Bell announced plans to move the chain’s 600 employees to new offices in the Irvine Spectrum.
The layoffs come as the restaurant industry has been hit hard by the downturn in the economy. In an October conference call, Yum said domestic locations have been struggling. However most of the downturn was tied to KFC, not Taco Bell or Pizza Hut.
In fact, Yum Chief executive David Novak said Taco Bell’s new Why Pay More Value menu, introduced in May, is exceeding the chain’s expectations.
“Why Pay More is resonating with customers in today’s economic environment,” Novak said of the menu, where food items range from 79 cents to 99 cents.
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I suppose this is necessary but the best way to succeed in life is to identify work you enjoy which enables you to be happy and be with your family anyway. We all deserve that. http://www.LikeSoup.com
Sad about the loss of jobs.
Interesting photo to accompany the article though, very well done.
I would have thought Taco Bell would be doing better with the popularity of their value menu.
I heart Taco Bell.
No, yo QUIERO Taco Bell!
TB is doing great. Other YUM brands are hurting and TB is doing their part to help YUM. This was a hard cut with strong and weak employees being let go.
I know several people who were let go and it didn’t matter if you were loved by the C level.
This is a quarter driven reaction and I project in 6-12 months the backlash of this cut will hurt TB. Some employees will get jobs with KFC who is trying to build an organization similar to what TB is cutting. Ironic.
Our government is still not comprehending or it does not want to understand. Let us send all H1 workers in this country back to their native country instead of laying off our own people. We can train our own people to do their job. American let unite and let government know that we do not want H1 workers in this country during these turbulent times. Democarts talk about change Republican call them selves patriotic-let them show how can a change be brought to this country. Let us produce our own goods using our own people. It is not justified to pay foreign workers when our own homes are collapsing to dust. Let us unite at this time and ask government to send H1 workers back to their homes.
Del Taco > Taco Bell
I will be more concern about the quality of their food. How can you keep lower prices with quality?
Not sure if it depends on the store that one goes to, but the portions have appeared smaller lately, and everyone working there most likely is receiving minimum wage! Over the last few years, all the employees seemed to have changed, doesn’t seem the same anymore. Too bad some of the corporate people will lose their jobs, apparently the company is satisfied with the training program. There are other fastfood places that are more enjoyable.
Has anyone questioned the difference in rent rates between current digs and moving to Spectrum? Spectrum boasts the highest rents in Irvine. They could really save big by moving to Lake Forest - like Western Digital. 6 month payback!
But then again, it’s very important my taco have an Irvine zip code!
Also, it’s a good time to dump the dead wood and get away with it!
TB is making a great comeback with their Volcano Taco, and Fruitiza drinks. Viva los taco’s mucho grandes!
Rummy, what does makin’ psuedo-tacos have to do with H1 visas?
When was the last time you interviewed an engineer?
Go H1! Lord knows our kids aren’t interested in the 3 r’s!!!
You don’t buy Taco Bell food, you only rent it.
Im so sorry to hear about the loss of income that those employee’s will suffer, but we are living in times of economic demise and people are just not able to spend the money like we used to. I hope that the economy turns about soon! I believe it’s going to get worse before it gets better. P.s, I never met a Taco Bell I didn’t love, I hate to say it, but I love everything about Taco Bell, just the thought of eating their double decker taco supreme makes my mouth water, yum!
TACO HELL SUX! like their commercials.
yum=yuk
and they serve pepsi! boo
No better time than now to admit this, but DODO, I prefer Pepsi over Coke. Was really bummed when Baja Fresh switched to Coke ….
The Fruitista is the nastiest drink I have ever had. I tried it at two different locations and the 2nd one was worst. It is just a bunch of crushed ice with loads of syrupt. I’ll stick to Juice it Up Thank You. =]
Sad to see the loss of jobs. I wish companies that export jobs, like Dell, Earthlink, Dodge, etc., would bring those jobs back to the USA. There’s something fundamentally wrong about calling customer service for a product you bought locally and talking to “customer service” in India or the Philippines.
We don’t build much of anything anymore and we just buy junk made in another country. I know that doesn’t apply to tacos but I’m pretty sure the packaging the food comes in, the containers, disposable utensils, etc., I’m sure all that stuff gets made overseas somewhere.
I don’t even want to get started on the housing crisis. It’s pitiful the government is willing to bail out banks when banks won’t help homeowners. Everyone got in over their heads but in the end, it’s your average hard working family who is losing the roof over their heads.
And now they want to bail out car makers??? It’s obvious that car makers produce way more than be reasonably sold. Why reward them for exploitive tactics?
My head and my heart ache over it.
Ever notice that they always pull this stuff just around the holidays?
That’s a find “Merry Christmas” Taco Bell !
It’s a shame they have to cut jobs yet are able to afford to throw a large corporate/public party this evening. If I couldn’t pay my employees I sure as heII wouldn’t be having a party.
Good! I tried to get a permanent job there after temping there for a month. Now I’m glad they didn’t hire me in the long run.
It’s starting to spread all over OC, it’s not just the financial industry anymore. Next will see the Desperate Housewives of OC.
Well, Taco Bell if you think its a good time to lay off people I think it a good time to lay you off !
Ok…everyone has a different perspective on this…let me tell u what the people in the rest. Who do the actual work for this company think…. its about damn time. YUM has to many people taking money but not making money…. the positions that are being taken have never been needed…. there’s a team in every companys existance where they look at their structure and have to TRIM the FAT so to speak…. and I say CUDOS to yum for seeing it and doing it in such a timely manner
Taco Bell sucks. Their food is awful- those who were fired should spill the beans on where alot of the ingredients to their food comes from; Dog, Rat, Horse, Turd- old nasty food from other restaurants. If these people are getting fired they might as well do the right thing and do a Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker on the way out.
oclogic-Good question. Cost cutting is done manly at middle tier level. Company does not save much by laying people off who make $7/Hr. It is core teams likle IT, accounting … that gets outsorced to countries like India. You got to visit that country where the income of people has soured due to dollars being spent there while the homes of American being foreclosed in this country. Additionally it does not matter $7/Hr or $70/Hr. American shold be the first ones to get work in this country before any H1 type workers. Additinally all these forgeign outsource companies are not playing by rules and regulations. H1 People work in California and they are issued W2 of Chicago or Texas because these companies are paying less to these H1 workers.
Sorry to see the layoffs. Obviously Yum has decided to go mostly status quo for a while, stop spending money on new initiatives and R&D (guess it will be a long wait for that volcano meximelt crunchwrap), and wait out the expected downturn. It’s scary to see all these anticipatory moves becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.
El Pollo Loco rocks! Taco bell needs to have french fries. Del Taco rocks french fries
Unfortunately, this is happening to a lot of companies due to the economic issues we are facing.
It is also due to bad business practices by many of these companies trying to reduce costs but at the same time giving stock holders and executives huge bonuses and raises. Buying out or aquring companies that are under performing will not increase your bottom line if you do not change the culture that some of these other companies operate within.
I might also ad, Customer Service sucks at many of these places because you get what you pay for. You are not going to garner the most professional individuals if you do not offer a decent wage.
I agree with a previous poster, it makes no sense to move the office to a bigger building with greater overhead and still cut jobs. I guess it is easy to do when you are in charge and making a very good living.
I wonder what Santa is going to bring you over priced executives for Christmas? Maybe a fired worker looking for money to pay the rent and feed their kids.
Greed in this country is unbelievable!
The picture in this article is quite funny. This is a picture from 2005 when migrant workers were upset with Taco Bell for not using locally grown tomatoes. No one has picketed Taco Bell lately. The picture I think shows a bias by the OC Register.
Rick S. Thanks for commenting. This photo was the only one I had on file of Taco Bell’s Irvine headquarters. I put a caption and noted the date to specifically show that it is a few years old. No bias, intended. Thanks again for reading. Nancy
its sad other people have to suffer.when the ceo and board od directors cash in millions in stock every month.there are plenty of people whom can do david novak job for less.
Thanks to outsourcing which hurts only the average person in the company. Perhaps they should lay off CFO etc so that company can save more money.
Issuing 170k H1 visa and 100k L1 visa every year to replace US citizen fulltime job, how is that helping unemployment? Those people are laid off , they are not able to pay their mortgage, go out shopping etc…how exactly does outsourcing help.
Perhaps we should outsource CEO, CTO and CFO. We will save company more money that way. If the company is not doing good upper management should be fired. After all what exactly are they paid for.. to announce in town hall meeting we did poor this year so go find another job and we will outsource job to India, Russia etc…
Perhaps taco bell and any other company should just move out there too, it will be cheaper for them to live there. And they should not get IP protection etc.. too.
Btw the H1 visa is joke for corporation. INS have no clue what it is doing either. To qualify for H1 visa, company have to prove that they can find technical person in USA. So prove it to INS they run job posting on monster etc for 8 months, do interview etc.. and turn away every job seeker and they say to INS, opps we can not find any one qualified enough here. Please give us H1 visa for this person from India.
What more funny is that in every day news we are crying about illegal immigrant from mexico else where crossing boring and picking up strawberry in california are taking out job which is probably like 5 dollars per hour so and legally we are outsourcing job that pays H1 person 70k average.
At time like this when unemployment is at rise. we need to stop all these H1, L1 visa etc… Just do the math, 200k visa issued every year , that is 200k or more job outsourced every year. And then we think why people are not shopping, not able to pay bills. In 1990 IT grad use to make 80k and 18yrs later they are making more less 75k. Lawyers and doctors are not worried because you can not outsource their job.
Therefore they are paid well also.
When I called Pizza Hut a few weeks ago and got someone taking the order in India, I quit ordering from Pizza Hut. We had a local call center that employed local people, and I felt good about those young people having jobs. I’m dropping Taco Bell from my plans, too.
They don’t take H1, L1 visa etc… or even Student Visa. Check your facts before you go Irate. They have been cracking down on immigrant workers who fake their identity and legal citizens whom also fake their identity.