This restaurant chain is paying managers' home-closing costs

Raising Cane's, a fried-chicken restaurant with about 700 locations, is touting a new benefit amid a stubbornly tight U.S. labor market: The company is now paying closing costs for general managers purchasing their first homes.

The just-introduced benefit covers as much as $10,000 of costs. Raising Cane's is also paying workers on a weekly basis, up from biweekly, and is raising minimum pay for hourly managers to $18 an hour from $15.

Recruiting and retaining enough staff has become a constant struggle for restaurants. The labor market has remained tight despite the Federal Reserve's recent rate hikes, although the latest data showed some softening in employment. Companies including Starbucks and Chipotle have increased wages and added new benefits for store employees in a bid to reduce turnover in the workforce. 

Read more: Why homeowner assistance will become a must-have benefit amid inflation and rising mortgage rates

"Managers too often in this industry are told that they can't," Raising Cane's Co-Chief Executive Officer AJ Kumaran said in an email. The company seeks to counter perceptions that workers "can't have work-life balance, they can't have flexible schedules, they can't save enough money for a large down payment on a home," he added. 

The chain, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has already given financial assistance to two managers in the process of buying a house. Raising Cane's says that its staffing levels have improved from last year thanks to investment in wages and other perks.

"We need to be staffed to continue our ambitious growth," Kumaran said. Raising Cane's has expanded rapidly, helped by the boom in fried-chicken sandwiches, and plans to open more than 100 locations this year.