McDonald’s, Coca-Cola deny announcing plans to stop hiring white people for top posts

McDonald’s and Coca-Cola both denied that they have announced plans to stop hiring white people in leadership positions and said the Facebook post with such a claim is untrue.

The post was first published in South Africa on March 30, 2021, and has been shared more than 3,300 times, including in the United States since mid-March.

There are also no such announcements on McDonald’s website, Facebook page, or Twitter account.

McDonald’s spokesman Daniel Padiachy told AFP Fact Check that the company has not announced any plans to cease hiring white people in top positions in its franchises across the globe, but is working to increase diversity among its workers.

The fast-food giant wanted to increase underrepresented groups in leadership roles in the US from 29 percent to 35 percent within the next five years.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola spokeswoman Anne Moore told AFP Fact Check that the claim is false and that the company will always hire the best-qualified candidates for any position anywhere in the world.

In 2020, Coca-Cola also announced on its official website that it would diversify its staff across all job levels to reflect all people of color in the US and to align with US census data for ethnicity by 2030.