Starbucks has recently been making some changes to their chain of coffee shops, and just recently did something that significantly influenced the company. Starbucks had a total of 16,000 corporate employees worldwide, and just laid off 6.9 percent of their employees, which is a pretty big deal.
Coffee baristas in company stores were not affected, but no matter what, 1,100 people is still a lot of people losing their jobs. Starbucks is not the only company to make huge cutbacks like this. Some examples include Southwest Airlines, and Bridgestone Americas, which together have fired a total of 2,450 workers.
Brian Niccol, CEO of Starbucks says, “Our size and structure can slow us down, with too many layers, managers of small teams and roles focused primarily on coordinating work.” Starbucks sales fell two percent last year, and in order to increase their sales once again, they knew they had to make a change like this.
