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What Starbucks Workers Need to Know

• Starbucks is closing roughly 250 North American stores this week, but it has not announced the number of employees this will affect, although early reporting suggests 900-workers will lose their jobs in this round.
• California workers who are laid off may qualify for EDD unemployment benefits and, in some cases, can continue receiving benefits while attending approved training.
• Starbucks is expanding its use of AI inside stores, making digital and AI skills increasingly useful for workers moving into their next job.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

Starbucks is closing approximately 250 North American coffeehouses later this week, the company confirmed Thursday, September 24. That represents about 1% of its more than 18,000 North American stores. Starbucks says the targeted locations either cannot consistently deliver the customer and employee experience it wants or do not have a path to acceptable financial performance.

There is an important distinction in the numbers being circulated. Starbucks has not announced 900 layoffs tied to this week’s 250 closures. The 900 non-retail job cuts occurred during the company’s September 2025 restructuring, when Starbucks closed 627 stores in North America and Europe. For the new closures, Starbucks says it will try to transfer affected baristas to nearby locations wherever possible and provide severance to workers it cannot place.

For California workers who ultimately lose their jobs, the first move should be practical — file for unemployment promptly.

California’s Employment Development Department says eligible workers who lose employment through no fault of their own can currently receive between $40 and $450 per week, depending on prior earnings. Claimants generally must have sufficient base-period wages and remain able, available and actively searching for work unless an approved exception applies.

Getting severance from Starbucks does not necessarily eliminate unemployment eligibility. California EDD guidance states that bona fide severance generally is not considered wages for unemployment-insurance purposes. Workers should still report separation payments and allow EDD to determine how the particular payment should be classified.

But unemployment can be more than a temporary check. It can also become a window to change careers.

California Training Benefits allows qualifying unemployment recipients to attend approved education or job training while continuing to receive UI. Once approved for CTB, participants generally do not have to remain available for work, conduct a job search or accept employment while attending qualifying training. Workers interested in potentially extending their benefits during training should contact EDD before the 16th week of benefit payments.

America’s Job Center of California also offers no-cost career assistance, while Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act programs can help eligible displaced workers obtain education and occupational training. California’s Eligible Training Provider List includes approved programs that may qualify for WIOA funding.

For a displaced barista, the best use of that time may be building skills that travel beyond the coffee business — Excel and data skills, AI literacy, digital customer-service platforms, inventory systems, bookkeeping, project coordination, digital marketing, food-safety credentials or entry-level IT support.

A Starbucks employee already brings something valuable to the table: experience working with customers, handling money, operating under pressure, coordinating with teams and managing fast-moving workflows. Pair those skills with a recognizable technical credential and suddenly the résumé fits far more than another coffee shop.

That is especially relevant because Starbucks itself is becoming increasingly technology-driven.

The company says its Green Dot Assist generative-AI system provides baristas with real-time answers about recipes, routines and service standards. Starbucks is also using or developing AI for order sequencing, demand forecasting, staffing and equipment monitoring. Starbucks says those technologies are intended to assist employees rather than replace them.

But the two stories meet at an important point. Retail work is becoming increasingly digitally assisted. A worker who uses unemployment as a bridge to understand AI, data and modern business software may emerge from Starbucks’ restructuring qualified for opportunities that were never available behind the counter.

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