Starbucks is taking its corporate layoffs international, cutting office jobs in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong as chief executive Brian Niccol pushes the next phase of his turnaround at the world’s largest coffee chain. The company confirmed in mid-June that the reductions hit back-office and support staff, not the baristas who work behind the counter. It is the first time the current restructuring has reached Starbucks’ overseas support teams in a meaningful way.

The move was no surprise. Back in May, when Starbucks cut about 300 corporate jobs in the United States and shut several regional offices, the company told regulators and reporters that its overseas teams were next. In a statement at the time, a Starbucks spokesperson said the company was reviewing its international support organization and expected additional role impacts outside the U.S. A securities filing spelled out the same plan in writing.

That plan has now landed in two of Starbucks’ biggest hubs outside North America.

In Hong Kong, the cuts fall on the company’s regional corporate office, known internally as the Hong Kong Support Center. It is not a store — it is the back office that runs Starbucks’ business across 15 Asia-Pacific markets, including Australia, India, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Staff there handle finance, marketing, store design, technology and supply chains for thousands of cafes across the region.

In the United Kingdom, the cuts hit Starbucks’ London-area corporate office. The company runs roughly 520 company-operated stores in Britain, along with close to 900 licensed locations run by partners. Those licensed cafes and their workers are operated separately and are not part of this round.

Why is this happening? The short answer is a man named Brian Niccol.

Niccol took over as chief executive of Starbucks in 2024 after turning around the burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill. He inherited a company with falling U.S. sales and a stock that had lost much of its value. His fix, branded “Back to Starbucks,” is built on two ideas: spend more on the actual coffeehouses and spend less on the layers of corporate staff above them.

That trade-off has meant repeated rounds of job cuts. Starbucks eliminated about 1,100 corporate roles in February 2025, then roughly 900 more non-retail jobs that September alongside store closures. Add this year’s reductions and the company has now removed close to 2,000 office positions in a year and a half.

The international cuts fit a bigger shift in how Starbucks wants to run its overseas business. Rather than owning and operating cafes in every country, the company is moving toward a licensing model, where local partners run the stores and pay Starbucks for the brand and the beans. Starbucks has said it wants nearly 90% of its international coffeehouses to be licensed. A licensor needs far fewer corporate staff than an operator does — which is exactly why the support offices are shrinking.

The numbers behind the overhaul are large. Starbucks is chasing about $2 billion in cost savings and has told investors the restructuring will carry roughly $400 million in charges, including about $120 million in severance and benefits for departing employees. Earlier this year the company also cut 61 technology jobs at its Seattle headquarters, with those exits running from late June into August.

For the workers losing their jobs, Starbucks has pointed to severance, extended health coverage and career assistance — the same package it offered during earlier rounds. The company has stressed in every announcement that store staff and the in-store experience are protected, because winning customers back inside the cafes is the whole point of the plan.

There is a customer angle too. Starbucks has spent the past year remodeling stores, bringing back ceramic mugs, simplifying its menu and adding seats and power outlets — all aimed at recreating the comfortable “third place” atmosphere that once set it apart from competitors. The corporate cuts are meant to help pay for that effort.

Whether it works remains an open question. Starbucks has reported periods of improving U.S. sales as the turnaround gained traction, and its shares have recovered from their lows. But the company is still closing stores in some markets, still negotiating with unionized baristas at home, and still asking office workers around the world to absorb the cost of the reset.

For now, the message from Seattle is consistent: fewer people in the back office, more money in the cafes. In mid-June, that message reached London and Hong Kong.

JBizNews Desk | Seattle
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