America’s largest coffee chain, Starbucks, is set to lay off 224 corporate and remote employees, according to an official Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice it filed with the Washington Employment Security Department on Thursday (US time).
The US federal law helps ensure that employers notify their workers at least 60 days in advance of planned plant closings and mass layoffs.
The forthcoming layoff round, scheduled to kick off in October and conclude the following month, will affect employees tied to the coffee giant’s 2401 Utah Ave. headquarters in Seattle. This decision to cut hundreds of jobs comes after the company previously announced plans to reduce its workforce by about 300 jobs.
On top of that, the Seattle-based company selected Nashville, Tennessee, as its new Southeast corporate office months ago. Tennessee lawmakers and the coffee brand announced the big move in April, affirming that $100 million would be invested in expanding the company’s North American presence. The new business location will employ up to 2,000 people over the next several years, according to a Starbucks press release.
Its Thursday’s filing further discloses that over 100 of the 224 employees being laid off in the coming months declined the opportunity to relocate to the Nashville office. The company sent its latest notice, signed by executive vice president and chief partner officer Sara Kelly, to Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, local US outlet KOMO News reported.
Despite the current expansion to Nashville, the company’s Seattle headquarters isn’t shutting down.
When will Starbucks’ layoffs begin?
The global coffee company stated in its official WARN notice that the “first separations” are expected to take place on October 19, 2026, with “all separations completed by November 1, 2026.”
The WARN filing suggested that about 120 job cuts will impact those employees, including technology support roles, who were presented with the chance to transfer to the Nashville office, but chose not to. The company’s letter to Washington State confirms that employees who agreed to the transition have not been affected by the planned separations.
A Starbucks global communications representative told local US outlet KOMO News that the remaining 104 employees have been targeted as part of overall organizational changes impacting coffeehouse design and development. The US news outlet further reported that the wide-ranging corporate positions listed in the latest notice include managers, program and project managers, application developers, engineers, designers, real estate employees, store designers, software quality assurance employees, store design leaders, systems analysts and technical product managers.
Earlier this year, Starbucks announced job cuts impacting 60 workers at its Seattle headquarters. Thereafter, a separate May 2026 WARN notice filing targeted 252 employees at its Seattle support centre. Those separations, involving remote employees across the US who reported to the Seattle office, were slated to commence on July 17 and last through February 1, 2027.
According to Starbucks’ FY25 annual report, the company housed a workforce of 381,000 employees as of September 2025. Meanwhile, the Washington WARN database highlights that the cuts beginning in October mark the coffee giant’s eighth layoff in the state over the past two years. 2,538 workers were affected during that period.
What prompted the new Starbucks layoffs?
In its Thursday’s filings, Starbucks emphasized that the reshuffling isn’t switching up the company’s strategy or changing the customer-first coffeehouse experience. The Seattle-based firm rather emphasized that it only plans to boost it and double down on creating what the company calls the “Third Place,” a separate social space from home and the workplace.
After Starbucks’ current CEO Brian Niccol took charge in September 2024, succeeding Laxman Narasimhan, he instantly initiated a turnaround strategy dubbed “Back to Starbucks.” It prompted a return to what made the company popular in the first place – the coffeehouses. The plan focussed on providing customers with “personal touches” and redesigning interiors to motivate customers to stick around longer.