News

Taco Bell eliminates 100+ jobs

November 21, 2011

Taco Bell, headquartered in Irvine, Calif., has eliminated 105 positions.

According to the OC Register, 30 of those jobs were open and unfilled, and 75 were layoffs.

Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed issued the following statement about the move:

"To win in this increasingly competitive marketplace, we've made the difficult but necessary decision to make some structural changes. We're committed to doing fewer things better, becoming more nimble, and providing our customers a better and more relevant Taco Bell."

The only departments not directly impacted by the layoffs were food innovation and technology.

Taco Bell's performance continues to lag from a sizeable lawsuit filed earlier this year questioning the company's beef content.

The chain generates about 60 percent of parent company Yum! Brands' domestic business and experienced a same-store sales decline of 2 percent in the most recent fiscal quarter.

During the Q3 earnings call, Yum! discussed turnaround strategies for Taco Bell in 2012, including the introduction of new products currently in the pipeline.

"What we think will get Taco Bell back on track is more category innovation and we've proven in test markets that we have exactly that coming. In conjunction with its 50th anniversary, we're reinventing the taco. We have major news coming around the end of the first quarter, and then we'll have significant uplift," said Yum! CEO David Novak.

Read more about operations management.