Starbucks Makes Good on "Create Jobs for USA" Promise

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz isn’t running for public office but he still keeps a close eye on nationwide employment numbers and wants to help boost them. The Seattle Times reports that Starbucks, which laid off 39,000 employees over the two years ending last fall, is about to start hiring again.

By year’s end, Starbucks will have a new barista battalion, some 3,500 strong, pulling on their aprons and dealing with steam burns, the Times notes. Next year will see 200 new Starbucks added to the nearly 11,000 existing ones. Those will need to be staffed up while 1,700 other Starbucks go through job-creation remodeling.

And if that weren’t enough, Starbucks will add a fifth roasting plant, which will create more jobs. The current ones exist in Sandy Run, S.C.; Carson Valley, Nev.; York, Pa.; and Amsterdam. And the neighbors probably wake up with vim and vigor just from the smell coming out of the doors of those places. Employees surely don’t suffer from mid-afternoon drowsiness there.

It all comes as Starbucks launches its "Create Jobs for USA" campaign this week.

The initiative started in August, when Schultz sent a letter to his fellow CEOs and “other business leaders calling for a stop to campaign donations until politicians fix the country's finances,” as the Times notes. Then in September he called America’s employment problems “the fracturing of the humanity of America" while taking part in an online town hall.

In October, the activist CEO put his money where his coffee is and, along with the Starbucks Foundation, “unveiled a plan to jump-start job growth by donating $5 million to a new program created with the Opportunity Finance Network to make loans for small businesses and community organizations.”

Schultz's Create Jobs for USA push went live on November 1st, when Starbucks customers could help that process by donating money and receiving an "Indivisible" wristband at top to show their support. The brand promises that “every $5 they contribute will result in $35 in loans in communities across the country."

The Opportunity Finance Network, Starbucks' partner in the Create Jobs for USA campaign, today announced the first round of 28 of its member CDFIs that received grants from the Create Jobs for USA Fund, seeded with that $5 million from the Starbucks Foundation.

Check out participants' stories at the Create Jobs for USA Twitter and Facebook pages, and post your thoughts on Starbucks' jobs-based cause marketing below.