By Sarah Shemkus
sshemkus@capecodonline.com
April 19, 2011
Cape Cod Times

Mark McBee loves his McJob.

He got his first job at McDonald's in 1980, at the age of 16. Over the years, he worked his way up the ranks, from burger flipper to restaurant manager to franchise owner.

Today, he and his wife Janise, whom he met when they worked together at McDonald's, own 13 locations of the fast food chain, including five on Cape Cod.

"I am obviously a living example that you can do a whole lot more with a McJob," McBee said.

Now, McBee is participating in a nationwide event aimed at giving thousands of people McJob opportunities. Today, McDonald's is holding a hiring drive aimed at finding 50,000 new employees in a single day.
The effort will increase the chain's spending on wages by $518 million in the coming year, according to statistics compiled for the company by Dennis Tootelian, of the Center for Small Business at California State University. And this could translate into $1.4 billion in new spending flowing into the economy, the numbers conclude.

McBee expects to hire from five to 10 new workers at each of his restaurants — in South Yarmouth, Bourne, Teaticket and two in Hyannis. The positions will be a mix of part-time and full-time jobs.
"The business at McDonald's is very strong right now and we need the additional people to handle the guests that are coming in and to continue to build the business," McBee said.

Overall, McDonald's expects to make 2,200 new hires in Massachusetts.

McBee will be hiring for both entry-level "crew member" jobs and for a few management positions, he said. Starting pay for entry-level positions at McBee's Cape restaurants will be slightly above minimum wage, at about $8.75 per hour, he said, and managers can earn as much as $50,000 per year.

A promising applicant will be one "who really gets along with other people: easygoing, quick learners, great smiles and can interact really well with people," he said. Previous experience is not necessary, he added.

"We'll pick people primarily on the people skills," he said. "We love training people from the ground up."

Since McDonald's announced the hiring initiative, McBee's restaurants have seen a threefold increase in the number of job applications coming in, he said.

"We've seen a tremendous increase in applicants over the last 10 days," he said.

Today, management staff at his locations will be accepting applications, conducting interviews, checking references and, in some cases, even offering jobs on the spot, McBee said.

"It could be kind of crazy," he said. "We have the potential for a pretty good crowd coming in, looking for work."

A job at McDonald's could help a worker develop skills and experience particularly well-suited for work on Cape Cod, said David Augustinho, executive director of the Cape and Islands Workforce Investment Board.

"The hospitality industry is the leading industry here on Cape Cod," he said. "These could be very good opportunities for someone who is looking for a work pathway as opposed to an educational pathway."
Hyannis resident Flavio Oliveira has followed just such a course.

"When I started 10 years ago, I started as the maintenance guy," he said.

Three years later, he had moved up to store manager. Today he oversees McBee's Brockton location. He hopes to one day own his own McDonald's franchise.

"It's a fun environment," Oliveira said. "Every day there's something new. You have a chance to learn, to develop a career."

Nonetheless, some of the people applying for these jobs may be driven by a lack of other opportunities, Augustinho said.

"Even before the downturn, when people were leaving the employment sector "» when they came back into the labor force they were coming back at positions that were not as lucrative," he said.
"It's not just people who are unemployed. We have a national phenomenon right now where kids are graduating from college and not finding work in the field that they're trained in."

As of February, 14,000 Cape Codders — 12.2 percent of the workforce — were jobless, according to numbers from the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. Nearly 24 percent of the Cape and Islands' unemployed have been out of work for more than 15 weeks, according to a separate state report.

"Right now," Augustinho said, "there are a lot of people who have been on unemployment for an extended period of time who will find these positions will give them some peace of mind."