DENVER – Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. plans to hire 4,000 employees in a single day next month, seeking to counter a tightening market for restaurant labor by enticing recruits with the possibility that high-performers could someday earn six-figure salaries and stock in the burrito chain, writes the Wall Street Journal.

The planned Sept. 9 hiring event, which is anticipated to expand Chipotle’s 59,000-member workforce by nearly 7%, is a high-profile example of restaurant chains stepping up recruitment efforts as the industry struggles to attract and retain employees. A stronger economy, rising demand for restaurant meals and a string of minimum-wage increases imposed by cities and states have shrunk the pool of available workers in the past few years.

“The economy has been thawing, more restaurants are opening, and there are fewer job applicants than there were several years ago,” Monty Moran, co-chief executive of Chipotle, told the Wall Street Journal.

Not surprisingly, some of the chain’s competitors have responded recently by boosting wages and offering more perks to employees, part of what some in the industry refer to as a “war on talent.” McDonald’s and Cheesecake Factory recently raised employee wages, and Starbucks is providing tuition reimbursement and financial aid to employees who enroll in an online bachelor’s degree program, while McDonald’s said it would help pay for employees to earn their high-school equivalency degree and take college classes. Chipotle has also added to its benefits, expanding college-tuition reimbursement to all hourly workers, adding paid sick days and increasing the amount of paid vacation it offers.

Chipotle is promoting next month’s career day with an advertising campaign beginning this week on social-media websites and music-streaming service Pandora. It plans to open its nearly 1,900 restaurants three hours earlier than usual on Sept. 9, interviewing candidates until the stores officially open to customers. Some of the new workers will be hired to staff the about 200 new restaurants Chipotle plans to open this year, but the majority will fill openings at existing restaurants.

As part of their plan to attract employees, earlier this year the company posted videos on its website explaining how hourly workers can rise to become “apprentices” earning $53,000 a year and “restaurateurs,” an elite level of management earning $133,000 annually. Restaurateurs are rare in the Chipotle system, with only about 400 now working in its restaurants. Their duties are the same as those of other general managers, but company officers bestow the title on those who oversee top-performing teams of workers. However, a footnote on Chipotle’s website says that the compensation figures are for “illustrative purposes only.” The company has long touted its “people culture,” and says 95% of its managers are promoted from its ranks of hourly workers, according to the Wall Street Journal.