Headline: Starbucks to hire 10,000 veterans and spouses over the next 10 years. Sounds good, right? NOT! Im about to tell you why. First of all, please understand, I am NOT anti Starbucks and that is not the point of this post. I have honestly never tasted Starbucks coffee, and have no intention of doing so anytime soon, but thats just because Im not into flavored coffees. Give me the straight black stuff from the greasy spoon restaurant and I will be fine. Now, why Starbucks hiring plan is just feel good PR and not actually a good thing. Veterans make up approximately 7 percent of the United States workforce. That means purely by accident, with no preferential treatment given, 1 out of every 14 people you hire should be a veteran. According to published reports, Starbucks has 150,000 full-time employees and 95,000 part time employees. Thats approximately 245,000 employees. Lets round that off to 250,000 just for the sake of easy math that everyone can follow. Starbucks annual voluntary turnover rate is reported to be anywhere from 9 to 12 percent. Again, for the sake of the math, lets say it is 10 percent. At 10 percent of 250,000, that means that Starbucks is hiring 25,000 people per year. Remember that 7 percent of the population in the workforce are veterans. 7 percent of 25,000 is 1,750. 1,750 times 10 years is 17,500. So..... Starbucks announced a goal of hiring 10,000 veterans over the next 10 years, when the normal odds of hiring say that they should be hiring 17,500 that same span. Now, Im not saying that Starbucks is anti military, I dont honestly believe that is the case. The problem is, most veterans are not interested in an $8 an hour job at Starbucks. Most find better work than that. Either way, I believe that Starbucks should definitely find someone who knows how to do research and a little math before announcing such ridiculous numbers as a great thing. And BTW, Starbucks, just in case you are reading this and wondering, I AM a veteran and Im NOT looking for a job. Im definitely not looking for one that pays $8 an hour. Lol.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 19:55:01 +0000