Coffee retailer Starbucks to close 300 stores and lay off 6700!
NEW YORK - January 29, 2009 - Starbucks, the once-iconic American retailer, which saw a 69% decline in profit in the last three months of 2008, closed 661 shops in the United States and Australia last year.
It will now shut 200 company-owned stores in its home country and a further 100 international stores, with the loss of around 6,700 jobs.
Although it did not explicitly say how many of its 700-plus UK stores will go, the UK remains a significant part of its international operation, and the number of British stores to be closed is likely to be in the double-digits, with each store employing an average of 20 people.
