As many as 12, 000 jobs will be affected under a Starbucks plan to close 600 stores in the United States, the coffee shop operator said on Tuesday.
The move would be taken to reverse declining customer visits, said Seattle-based Starbucks, the world's largest chain of coffee shops.
Both full- and part-time retail positions in the closed stores will be "eliminated," the company said in a regulatory filing.
About 7 percent of its global workforce, or 12,000 workers, will be affected by the planned closure, but the company said many of the affected employees are expected to be moved to nearby stores.
No specific figure of lost jobs is available. The closure is expected to take place between late July and the middle of 2009, it said.
Starbucks, headed by Howard Schultz since January, has slowed its expansion in the U.S. after doubling the number of stores in the past four years.
Starbucks' sales slowed and earnings dropped in the second quarter due to declining visits by cash-strapped customers facing record gasoline prices.
Source:Xinhua
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