Starbucks laying off 350 people, mostly at Seattle headquarters

Starbucks is notifying about 350 corporate employees Tuesday that they no longer have a job with the Seattle coffee giant, an expected wave of layoffs associated with a reorganization announced earlier this fall.

The company, under pressure to accelerate sales growth and in the midst of a multiyear changeover of its top leadership, spent the fall engaging in a function-by-function review of its corporate teams, beginning with senior vice president and vice president levels. Most of the job cuts were expected to hit employees — or partners, in Starbucks’ parlance — at the company’s Sodo headquarters, where about 5,000 people work. No layoffs at the retail store level were planned.

An undisclosed number of senior executives were let go in September, though the company did not provide specific details.

The job cuts, said CEO Kevin Johnson in an email to employees Tuesday morning, “came as a result of work that has been eliminated, deprioritized or shifting way of working within the company.”

Starbucks is trying to streamline its operations and narrow its priorities. In addition to job cuts, the company has spun off parts of its European business and struck a deal with Nestle for the marketing of consumer packaged goods, among other changes.

Chief operating officer Rosalind Brewer alluded to some of the organizational changes after the company reported improved fourth-quarter sales growth on Nov. 1. She said certain marketing, customer and employee analytics efforts had been combined, yielding a smaller, better-informed group that was leading to faster decision-making.

She also noted the corporate leadership’s commitment to shareholders to reduce general and administrative expenses – the daily operating costs of running the business – as a percentage of sales.

Before these layoffs, Starbucks transferred more than 500 employees to Nestle in the U.S. and Europe as part of that $7.2 billion deal.