As people stay home and order food deliveries rather than risk catching coronavirus at dine-in restaurants, Pizza Hut (YUM 3.37%) is going all-out on hiring new workers to meet demand. In a posting on Pizza Hut's blog HutLife, the fast food chain announced today that it's seeking more than 30,000 employees across the United States. According to the blog post, all of the open positions are permanent.
Image source: Pizza Hut.
Delivery drivers are mentioned prominently on the list of workers Pizza Hut is looking for. Many of the deliveries will now be contactless, with customers given an option to choose contact-free placement of their order near a specified door or location while ordering. Prepayment and pre-tipping are both available during the ordering process using credit or debit cards. Once the driver arrives and deposits the bag of food, they will then notify the purchaser after leaving the immediate area.
The five-hour training period for freshly hired drivers underlines Pizza Hut's urgent need for new candidates. This lightning-fast interval will see many trainees making deliveries on the same day they're hired, slashing onboarding time to a third of the approximately 15 hours allotted prior to the current push. The company is also looking for people to fill several other key roles, including cook, call center agent, and restaurant manager.
Robust demand for take-out and delivered pizza is at the heart of Pizza Hut's hiring blitz. It also reports that sales of its 24-inch, 24-slice Big Dipper pizza have skyrocketed since families have started staying home and eating together rather than dining out separately. The rise in demand could help to restore Pizza Hut's sales, which slumped in the fourth quarter of 2019.
