Starbucks goes all in on human baristas after years of slashing its workforce

Since taking the helm in September, Niccol has been heading a customer-service-focused “Back to Starbucks” strategy to return the world’s largest coffee chain to its coffeehouse roots. 

On Tuesday, he told Reuters that Starbucks is accelerating the rollout of its new “Green Apron” service model to all North American stores by the end of summer — announcing to the ~14,000 store managers at the Vegas event that “the biggest human capital investment in connection in the history of Starbucks is about to happen.” For many Starbucks workers, this can’t come soon enough.

Since 2022, the company has slashed its workforce, moving toward automated equipment for efficiency. Based on our calculations, the company had an average of 26.8 employees per US company-operated Starbucks store at the time. By the end of fiscal year 2024, that figure was 19.8.

But now, Starbucks is doing a U-turn on automation, having halted the use of its high-tech systems in April.

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