Ten thousand veterans, and active-duty spouses are expected to land jobs with Starbucks throughout the next five years the company in a press release Wednesday.
"This is, in my view, not charity or philanthropy. But in fact, this is good business," Howard Schultz, Starbucks chief executive officer told The Seattle Times. "These are highly skilled, highly trained people who have significant leadership capabilities, who will add value to Starbucks. This is absolutely the right thing to do for so many people who have a hard time landing softly and finding their way back to civilian life. Businesses and business leaders need to meet them more than halfway."
According to The Times, the coffee chain's news comes at a time when soldiers are returning home from Afghanistan, and is part of the company's efforts to also create a hiring system for veterans and spouses in active duty in order to get to 500,000 employees from its current total of 200,000, and also recognize the work of veterans the press release reported.
"Companies that fail to engage the military community to identify quality job candidates are doing themselves a tremendous disservice," Marjorie James, Executive Director of Hire America's Heroes said in a statement. "Veterans and military spouses are valued members of mission driven teams and working with an organization like Starbucks gives them an opportunity to establish a long term career that builds on that sense of purpose in pursuit of a common goal."
Starbucks is also focusing on locations focused on community initiatives particularly in Lakewood, WA, and San Antonio, Texas that donate a certain amount of money to the municipality the store is in via a local community organization.
The company's new Lakewood location at 10314 S. Tacoma Way is expected to donate 10 cents of each customer's transaction to Operation GoodJobs, an organization that assists veterans find employment after they are in the service.
Starbucks in San Antonio is going to collaborate with organization Vested in Vets.
