McDonald’s Ireland today announces plans to beef up its expansion plans with the creation of 700 new jobs over the next three years. The jobs will be created through the opening of up to 12 new restaurants and an investment of over €20 million in McDonald’s Ireland between now and the end of 2015.
The new restaurants will be based in Dublin and nationwide, including locations such as Kilkenny, Ballina and Kildare. McDonald’s is actively looking at locations for the remaining restaurants and a number of sites are currently under consideration. The company plans further new openings in 2014 and 2015. Recruitment for the positions will commence in January 2013 on the McDonald’s website.
The Minister for Small Business, John Perry, TD officially opened the latest McDonald’s restaurant in Airside, Co Dublin this morning, which has created 82 jobs. This brings the total employment by McDonald’s in Ireland to 4,054, which will rise to more than 4,700 when the new jobs come on stream.
Commenting on the expansion plans, Minister Perry said: “This announcement by McDonald’s Ireland is very positive news. McDonald’s is not only directly creating a very significant number of jobs in the food service industry, it is also helping to secure jobs and create employment indirectly, through the Irish goods and services it purchases for domestic use and for export. Many of McDonald’s restaurants are operated by franchisees who are small business owners and who, working with McDonald’s, have developed successful business while creating jobs in their communities across the country. The McDonald’s model offering local business people the opportunity to run their own business as franchisees has been very successful over the last thirty five years.
McDonald’s also announced details of an economic analysis prepared by Indecon International Economic Consultants. McDonald’s overall expenditure in the Irish economy on food, restaurants and labour costs amounts to €283.7 million in 2011. The company facilitated exports of Irish-origin food produce of €192 million to McDonald’s internationally in 2011, including €110 million of Irish beef.
Adrian Crean, Managing Director of McDonald’s Ireland said: “This investment in our Irish operations in our 35th year of doing business here in Ireland highlights the strength of our business. We take pride in our consistent creation of quality jobs with the associated economic multiplier effect, throughout a difficult economic period.
The Indecon report highlights the contribution made by our business to the wider Irish economy, through the purchase of Irish goods, services and expenditure on labour. We are also delighted to be able to facilitate high volumes of quality Irish produce to our international markets and we expect that our recent deal with Dawn Meats will provide further impetus to beef exports in particular, in the future.”
