Starbucks shows the door to its 350 Seattle employees

Starbucks (SBUX) plans to axe its 5% of corporate employees, which includes some senior executives. This layoff would impact around 350 staffs in its Sodo office who work in various departments including marketing, sales and technology. Earlier in September, the coffee giant had announced that there will be leadership cuts, reorganization and job cuts.

The Seattle-based coffee chain expects that the reorganization would improve its business and will bring in sales growth. In a memo sent in September to the employees, which was titled as “Building our future together”, CEO Kevin Johnson wrote that the company is making progress on its priorities, including faster growth in the US and China. He also added that there will be leadership shifts and job losses without mentioning the exact number of job cuts.

Starbucks has around 5,000 employees in Sodo and today’s decision will impact around 350 of them. In 2015, the company had axed an unknown number of its corporate employees and during the Great Recession, it closed many stores causing thousands of employees losing their jobs.

The company’s worldwide headcount was about 277,000 as of October 1, 2017. In the U.S., Starbucks employed around 185,000 people, with approximately 175,000 in company-operated stores and the remainder in support facilities, store development, and roasting, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution operations.

Starbucks stock surges after Q4 results make an impressive brew

The struggling coffee maker reported its Q4 results on November 1, in which revenue grew 11% to $6.3 billion and profit increased 13% year-over-year to $0.62 per share. Starbucks had opened 604 stores in the fourth quarter of 2018, bringing its total store count to 29,234 in 78 markets. The company plans to shut down 150 underperforming stores in fiscal 2019, which is triple the amount of its usual closing in a year.

Shares of Starbucks dropped about 1% at 3:30 PM ET and have gained 17% and 19% during the year-to-date and past one-year timeframe, respectively.

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