What is the number of franchisees that put up their hands to help Wendy's grow in the U.K.? 
nnis Geiger with UBS.
Dennis Geiger -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
Great. Thanks for the question. And Todd and GP, thanks for the latest update on the international performance and the growth outlook. Just wondering, if you could talk a bit more about the international development opportunity. I think certainly, a big number announced this week for the U.K. and you highlighted Canada and some of the agreements in Central Asia just now. But just wondering if anything more to add on sort of the discussions with existing international franchisees, how they're thinking about the growth as well as those new partner discussions that you mentioned? I'm curious, if the COVID challenges at all have impacted those discussions or the pace of opens and any other kind of guideposts that we should be looking out for? Thank you.
Gunther Plosch -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Dennis. Good morning. We're making steady progress on our development. As you know, it's one of the three strategic growth pillars. And we talked to you last time, eight weeks ago, since then, we actually signed a new development agreement in Central Asia with about 50 restaurants. So we also enabled a franchise flipping in Quebec, Canada that actually allows us to unlock that part of Canada, which is totally underpenetrated for us. So it creates growth for us.
And we're getting more and more excited about the U.K., right? The U.K. consumer seems to be ready for us. We have built a robust franchise pipeline. We said it in the prepared remarks, about 20 franchisees put up their hands. So like I want to help you Wendy's grow in the U.K. And with that, a chief development officer said in one of the interviews in the U.K. that there is no reason to believe why the long-term potential of the U.K. for us shouldn't be 400 restaurants. Just to be clear, there's no development agreement signed for the U.K. It's a belief that we have and that we'll be going after and that's where we're going to make our investment.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Jeff Farmer with Gordon Haskett.
Jeff Farmer -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst
Thank you. You briefly touched on it, but what your current staffing levels look like across the system? And what are some of the common themes of those franchisees that have had the most success with staffing in the current environment?
Todd A. Penegor -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yeah. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, staffing has gotten a little bit tighter out in our restaurants. We are really focused on ensuring that we're creating restaurants that are fun and energizing, leveraging technology to make them simpler to operate to make sure that our employees have a great experience. So in turn, our customers can have a great experience.
So the focus is really on retention of the employees we have. We have seen folks paying a little bit more. We have seen folks doing things like paid time off. We're seeing folks do things like free lunches, and we're really trying to make sure that we're taking care of our existing employees. We're leveraging a lot of technology and tools that go out there and recruit even more folks to come into what we believe is a very great culture at Wendy's to work in our restaurants.
And reimaging certainly helps to recruit employees into new restaurants, whether that's a new developed restaurant or reimaged restaurant, it certainly helps along the way. But it will be tight for a little bit for a variety of reasons, and we're managing through that as we look at where we're staffing folks in the restaurant and how we're positioning folks to drive the most throughput with how we're staffed.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Brian Mullan with Deutsche Bank.
Brian Mullan -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Hey, thank you. Just another question on development. When you think about achieving 3% net unit growth next year, if you could just comment on the U.S. piece of that. Sitting here in May, are franchisees responding how you'd hoped to the incentives? And do you have a good se
nnis Geiger with UBS.
Dennis Geiger -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
Great. Thanks for the question. And Todd and GP, thanks for the latest update on the international performance and the growth outlook. Just wondering, if you could talk a bit more about the international development opportunity. I think certainly, a big number announced this week for the U.K. and you highlighted Canada and some of the agreements in Central Asia just now. But just wondering if anything more to add on sort of the discussions with existing international franchisees, how they're thinking about the growth as well as those new partner discussions that you mentioned? I'm curious, if the COVID challenges at all have impacted those discussions or the pace of opens and any other kind of guideposts that we should be looking out for? Thank you.
Gunther Plosch -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Dennis. Good morning. We're making steady progress on our development. As you know, it's one of the three strategic growth pillars. And we talked to you last time, eight weeks ago, since then, we actually signed a new development agreement in Central Asia with about 50 restaurants. So we also enabled a franchise flipping in Quebec, Canada that actually allows us to unlock that part of Canada, which is totally underpenetrated for us. So it creates growth for us.
And we're getting more and more excited about the U.K., right? The U.K. consumer seems to be ready for us. We have built a robust franchise pipeline. We said it in the prepared remarks, about 20 franchisees put up their hands. So like I want to help you Wendy's grow in the U.K. And with that, a chief development officer said in one of the interviews in the U.K. that there is no reason to believe why the long-term potential of the U.K. for us shouldn't be 400 restaurants. Just to be clear, there's no development agreement signed for the U.K. It's a belief that we have and that we'll be going after and that's where we're going to make our investment.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Jeff Farmer with Gordon Haskett.
Jeff Farmer -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst
Thank you. You briefly touched on it, but what your current staffing levels look like across the system? And what are some of the common themes of those franchisees that have had the most success with staffing in the current environment?
 Todd A. Penegor -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yeah. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, staffing has gotten a little bit tighter out in our restaurants. We are really focused on ensuring that we're creating restaurants that are fun and energizing, leveraging technology to make them simpler to operate to make sure that our employees have a great experience. So in turn, our customers can have a great experience.
So the focus is really on retention of the employees we have. We have seen folks paying a little bit more. We have seen folks doing things like paid time off. We're seeing folks do things like free lunches, and we're really trying to make sure that we're taking care of our existing employees. We're leveraging a lot of technology and tools that go out there and recruit even more folks to come into what we believe is a very great culture at Wendy's to work in our restaurants.
And reimaging certainly helps to recruit employees into new restaurants, whether that's a new developed restaurant or reimaged restaurant, it certainly helps along the way. But it will be tight for a little bit for a variety of reasons, and we're managing through that as we look at where we're staffing folks in the restaurant and how we're positioning folks to drive the most throughput with how we're staffed.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Brian Mullan with Deutsche Bank.
Brian Mullan -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Hey, thank you. Just another question on development. When you think about achieving 3% net unit growth next year, if you could just comment on the U.S. piece of that. Sitting here in May, are franchisees responding how you'd hoped to the incentives? And do you have a good se