The Wall Street Journal reported that Starbucks is laying off 900 corporate employees and will be closing hundreds of its stores.

“The Seattle-based coffee chain said Thursday that most of the affected positions were located in North America. Starbucks said it is also eliminating many open positions. The company plans to notify affected workers Friday and asked corporate employees to work from home the rest of this week,” WSJ wrote.

This is the second round of corporate layoffs as CEO Brian Niccol works towards his $1 billion restructuring effort to revive the company’s sales, wrote Reuters. “The coffee chain's overall U.S. and Canada store count is expected to drop by 1%, or several hundred stores, by the end of the 2025 fiscal year.”

Niccol has said the staff reductions are needed to funnel more resources toward stores, where he is “boosting staff and introducing new training for baristas to make cafes more hospitable.”

“These steps are to reinforce what we see is working and prioritize our resources against them,” Niccol said in a message to employees Thursday.

Starbucks reportedly said it would spend around $1 billion on severance payments, exiting leases and other costs. The company will begin the process of closing most of the stores in the upcoming days.

A Starbucks spokesperson said the union status of stores was “not a factor in the decision-making process.”

The QSR has been working to simplify its menu and return to being a “third space” over the last several months.

In May 2025, Placer.ai reported that Starbucks saw a 0.72% visit decrease year over year compared to visits in May 2024. The urgency for Starbucks’ turnaround is “amplified by competition from all sides. The market has seen a surge in new, efficient drive-thru coffee concepts like Dutch Bros, 7 Brew, PJ’s Coffee and others that cater to consumers seeking speed and convenience,” the research firm said at the time.