Chipotle's CEO says the chain isn't having a problem hiring after it raised prices to pay workers more

• CEO Brian Niccol says the great resignation movement isn't happening at Chipotle.
• Chipotle raised wages in 2021 in a push to increase hiring.

Chipotle isn't seeing the effects of the "Great Resignation" in its workforce, CEO Brian Niccol told investors on Tuesday in the fourth-quarter earnings call. The Mexican chain is staffed back up to pre-pandemic levels, with no signs of mass resignations among General Managers.

Chipotle, like many competitors, raised wages in June 2021 to an average hourly pay of $15 per hour. The raise, $2 above the chain's previous average wage, impacted thousands of employees, Chipotle told Insider last year. News of increased wages came out as Chipotle announced it was looking to hire an additional 20,000 employees to staff up 200 new restaurants.

Staffing needs continue to grow for Chipotle, which has booming sales. In the same earnings call, the fast-casual chain shared that sales were up 19.3% over the previous year. Nearly half of sales, 45.6% in 2021, were digital. The growth of digital sales means that Chipotle has to staff up two make lines at every restaurant, one for walk-in customers and one for digital orders.

Demand has come booming back in the restaurant industry from the earlier days of the pandemic, but the workforce hasn't returned at the same rate.

Turnover among restaurant workers is still elevated over pre-pandemic levels. In a Black Box Intelligence survey of 4,700 former and current restaurant workers from October, 15% said they'd left the industry in the previous year, and another 33% planned to leave.

Labor costs increased, and many business owners say that they've been unable to staff restaurants. In some cases, owners even cite a lack of desire to work, while workers say they can demand better pay and benefits in the tight labor market.

Though Chipotle says staffing is no longer a major problem, the chain has had its share of struggles over the last few years. In November, five Texas Chipotle workers, including a general manager and kitchen manager, told Insider that they walked out over "impossible" conditions thanks to understaffing and constant digital orders. Workers in Kentucky made a similar move after the chain's Boorito promotion, which it said was the highest volume digital order day of the year.

Chipotle says it's looking to hire more workers ahead of its busy season, but fewer than 1% of stores have their digital make lines throttled due to low staff as of February 2022.

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