Friendly’s and Hard Rock Cafe are two of the latest restaurants to announce temporary staff layoffs in Connecticut, citing state orders requiring restaurants to close for on-premise services during the COVID-19 health crisis.
Friendly’s, a Wilbraham, Mass.-based restaurant chain that pivoted to a quick-service dining model in recent years, informed state labor officials last week it temporarily laid off 78 full- and part-time workers in late March at locations in Plainville, Willimantic and Mystic, according to notices posted by the Department of Labor (DOL) on Friday.
The filings are required by the federal WARN Act, which mandates that employers with more than 100 workers provide advance notice of layoffs affecting 50 or more of their employees at a single site.
However, the company in its letter to DOL said it does not believe the notice is required under the WARN Act due to “unforeseen circumstances” caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It decided to voluntarily offer the information to “provide useful notice to the community, officials said.
It was not immediately clear Friday morning whether Friendly’s has laid off workers at its other 12 Connecticut locations in Manchester, Southington, Avon, Enfield, Windsor Locks and Vernon, among others. The company could not be reached for comment.
The diner-style restaurant told DOL it’s “hopeful” the layoffs will be temporary, but it’s still unsure when the business will be allowed to fully reopen.
The layoffs impact dozens of service workers, cooks, supervisors and managers — none of which are represented by a union.
Hard Rock Cafe at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket has also informed DOL it plans to temporarily furlough 68 employees — including hosts and line cooks, managers and bartenders — between April 13 and April 27.
“These sudden and unexpected circumstances adversely affected our business operations and, unfortunately, prevented us from providing notice sooner,” the company said in a notice to DOL. “At this time and based on the information currently available, we anticipate that the closure/furloughs will be temporary, and hope to re-engage as many employees as possible once business levels return to normal after the pandemic ends.”
As of Thursday morning, DOL has provided $230 million in unemployment benefits after processing 327,000 of the 402,000 unemployment claims it has received since March 13.
