Obamacare: Restaurants to cut back on full time employees to offset healthcare reform costs

  Darden Restaurants is looking at ways to reduce the increased costs associated with Obamacare and have decided to cut down on the number of full time employees in their hire at restaurants such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and Longhorns on a test basis to see how it works out. 

  In an emailed statement, Darden said staffing changes are “just one of the many things we are evaluating to help us address the cost implications health care reform will have on our business. There are still many unanswered questions regarding the health care regulations and we simply do not have enough information to make any decisions at this time.”

  Darden is not alone, Whitecastle Hamburgers is also considering this option and it is being predicted that this will be the trend in the restaurant industry as companies prepare for the increased costs of doing business because of Obamacare:

I think a lot of those employers, especially restaurants, are just going to ensure nobody gets scheduled more than 30 hours a week,” said Matthew Snook, partner with human-resources consulting company Mercer

  So on top of losing whatever healthcare benefits these employees might have had they are also losing hours as a result of Obamacare at a time when Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Suddenly there are even fewer jobs about to be made available and we have Obamacare to thank for that.

  The Affordable Care Act doesn’t seem so affordable anymore, does it? But then again it never was meant to be; the plan was to push people away from private insurance and increase the number of people dependent on government well above the 47% that Mitt Romney was talking about and in that regard it appears as if Obamacare is going to be a success.