Recently, the retail sector has been hammered by job losses. The man who was President Donald Trump’s first choice for Labor Secretary explained to CNBC that “you’ve got two pressures coming in to retail businesses. One is business is down because people are doing things online. Two, the cost of staying in business, the cost of labor, is going up.”
Until last month, Puzder was CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of burger chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. The bulk of jobs at fast food restaurants are lower paid, often minimum wage positions.
Last December, Trump nominated Puzder for Labor Secretary, yet Puzder withdrew from consideration under pressure on February 15th.
“You can only be confirmed if you have 51 votes,” Puzder explained to CNBC when he lost support of 4 Republicans, those defections put him under the threshold for confirmation. “I didn’t want to tilt at windmills if I wasn’t going to win there was no need to stay in the process. And so I dropped out.”
Puzder, who in the past has taken heat for his seemingly eager embrace of automation, said that “you need to keep the cost of entry level jobs low, so businesses aren’t incentivized to replace those jobs with automation.”
Meanwhile, restaurant chains are re-thinking their approach to labor. McDonalds, Wendy’s and Panera Bread have all introduced tablets, or self-serve kiosks used for customer orders.
“People need these entry level jobs while we train the labor force for a twentieth century economy,” Puzder said. “The Department of Labor could be a big part of that, and it’s something I would have pushed had I been confirmed.”
