Reading down to the later parts of the article, this sounds like a bad game of telephone from upper-management to middle-management.
Central Applebee management puts out vague message about inflation affecting costs and revenues. That hiring managers need to work harder to retain their employees by giving potential employees more flexible schedules (which may have a benefit of cutting costs: some employees may be willing to take a lower pay if they can have a different schedule).
Some middle-manager reads that statement as having to do with gas-prices making prospective employees more desperate for a job.
And the rest is history.
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Upper-management always issues vague strategic-level statements. Its the middle-managers who have to translate the vague statements into something that connects with the lower-level employees. This middle-manager colossally failed at the job.