The Kuwait-based group issued a statement reported by the Associated Press in which it admitted to dismissing employees from its sites in the Middle East and North Africa, noting that the group is a private family company that owns the franchise rights to a variety of Western companies, including Shake Shack and H. &M and The Cheesecake Factory.
“As a result of the ongoing difficult trading conditions over the past six months, we have made the very sad and difficult decision to reduce the number of associates in Starbucks stores in the Middle East and North Africa region,” the statement read. The company refused to answer questions about the number of employees it laid off.
Reuters, which was the first to report on the layoffs, estimated the number at more than 2,000 employees. Many of its employees in the Arab Gulf states are foreign workers hailing from Asian countries.
The group operates about 1,900 Starbucks branches in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Emirates. It employs more than 19,000 employees, according to the Seattle-based company.
Since the beginning of the war on October 7, Starbucks has found itself, along with other Western brands, targeted by boycott due to the Gaza war. The company is trying to counter “ongoing misinformation and misleading information being shared about Starbucks” and spread online.
Starbucks explained: “We have no political agenda. We do not use our profits to fund any government or military operations anywhere. And we never have.”
Starbucks’ revenues rose 8% to a record $9.43 billion in the October-December period. But that was lower than analysts’ expectations of $9.6 billion, likely in part due to the boycott campaign.
2024-03-06 11:04:09
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