Starbucks slashes jobs while adding stores, piles more work on baristas

By Brian Williams
June 17, 2024

Starbucks has been cutting its workforce while opening hundreds of new stores in a drive to boost its profits. This means remaining workers are overworked and unable to keep up with the daily barrage of orders. Customers find themselves stuck waiting over half an hour to get their latte, the New York Post reported May 29.

Between Octobers 2022 and 2023, Starbucks bosses laid off 29,000 workers while opening another 380 stores.

Waiting 40 minutes at a Starbucks in Shelton, Connecticut, to pick up a latte for his wife on Mother’s Day, Chris Mills told Bloomberg News he was upset by the pace of work forced upon the six baristas there. “Nobody involved,” he said, “including me, the other customers, and even the staff seemed to be happy.”

The company denies its stores are understaffed. Frank Britt, who identifies himself as Starbucks’ “chief reinvention officer,” told Bloomberg the company uses algorithms to determine how many workers are needed at each store and when.

But algorithms don’t make lattes, Frappuccinos or promotional goodies, much less fill special orders. Inflation has driven wholesale coffee prices higher. This cuts into the number of customers and profits. Starbucks reported a 15% drop in net income over the past quarter.