Starbucks to close stores, lay off workers in $1 billion restructuring
In a message to employees on Thursday, Niccol said that the company examined and detected the stores that we cannot see the physical environment or financial performance that our customers and partners expect.
In addition to focusing on customer experience, Niccol has made additional changes in operations, including return to four days in the office from next month.
Partners,
I am grateful for his job to put first -class customer service in the center of everything we do and focus on creating a raised Starbucks experience for every customer for each customer.
When making good progress, there is a lot to do to create a better, stronger and more flexible Starbucks. As I approach the beginning of our new fiscal year, I share two decisions we make to the Starbucks plan to support our back. Both can create great coffeehouses, provide first -class customer service and enlarge the business.
Changes in some of our coffeehouses
First of all, I shared that we are carefully examining our Starbucks plan from the additional lens of our back to our Starbucks plan, North America Coffee Portfolio. Our aim is to offer each coffee a warm and hospitable area with a great atmosphere and a seat on every occasion.
During the examination, we determined that we did not see a way for the physical environment or financial performance that our customers and partners expect and that these places will be closed.
Every year, we open and close coffeehouses for various reasons from financial performance to the end of rental periods. This is a more important action that we understand that it will affect partners and customers. Our coffeehouses are the centers of the community and it is difficult to close any place.
To make this into the context: Since we opened many coffeehouses last year, our general number operated by the company in North America will decrease approximately 1% in the 2025 financial year after taking into account both openings and closing.
We will finish the financial year with approximately 18,300 total Starbucks location in the USA and Canada – operated by the company and licensed. In the financial year of 2026, we will increase the number of coffeehouses we operate while continuing to invest in our business. For the next 12 months, we plan to raise more than 1,000 places to offer more texture, temperature and layer design.
Partners in the coffeehouses planned to be closed will be informed this week. We are working hard to offer transfer to the nearby places as possible, and we will quickly move to help the partners understand which opportunities can be available for them.
For what we cannot place immediately, we focus on common care, including comprehensive severance pay packages. In addition, we hope to invite most of these partners to Starbucks in the future when new coffeehouses are opened and the number of partners in each position increases.
Reduce non -capital common roles
Secondly, we further reduce the number of personnel and expenses that have not been retreated. This includes a difficult decision to eliminate the common role of approximately 900 existing retreats and close many open positions.
While building it towards a better Starbucks, we invest in the Green Apron Partner watches, more common, extraordinary customer service, high coffee house designs and future in stores to create the future. We will continue to carefully manage costs and focus on key areas that provide long -term growth.
The roles will be informed tomorrow morning (Friday). We will offer generous severance pay and support packages, including benefit extensions.
We want you to work from home today and tomorrow unless your job requires you to be on the site.
What’s next
These steps are to strengthen what we see and give priority to our resources. The first results from the upgrade of coffee house show that customers visit more frequently, stay longer and share positive feedback. In order to be more common to work at busy times, we have seen improvements in transactions, sales and service periods, as well as more happy, more busy partners, where we invest in more green gowns common watches.
I know that these decisions affect our partners and their families, and we didn’t make them slightly. I believe that these steps are necessary to create a better, more powerful and more durable Starbucks that deepen the impact on the world and create more opportunities for our partners, suppliers and communities we serve.
I would like to thank the partners to leave. I deeply appreciate your commitment to help us return to Starbucks on our return journey.
Brian
