Puerto Rico’s Department of Labor and Human Resources (DTRH) will investigate whether Encanto Restaurants failed to give advance notice of its layoffs and whether it owes wages to its employees, Secretary María del Pilar Vélez Casanova said at a press conference at La Fortaleza on Thursday. The government is also organizing four recruitment fairs to help the affected workers.
Vélez Casanova said the department can investigate through its labor standards bureau, which is part of the questions employees have raised: why no notice was given, whether unpaid wages for work already performed are owed, and some leave payouts. She said the government learned of the closures through the media and social media, not from the employer, after many people posted that their workplaces had opened to find them closed.
On the obligation to notify layoffs 60 days in advance, she said the department must investigate the circumstances behind the closures and what the company’s managers knew. She noted that, according to information circulating in the media and social networks, the company had been facing quality-related problems. DTRH payroll records show Encanto Restaurants has roughly 2,600 to 2,700 employees across the KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and IHOP franchises.
Officials clarified that some locations have had partial closures and that the figure is not necessarily the final total of layoffs. As of Thursday, about 500 workers had applied for unemployment benefits.