Starbucks has been reportedly cutting down on employees hours resulting in overworked baristas, extended wait times, and a lack of customer service and restaurant maintenance.
Although Starbucks Corporate reported another quarter of record profit and sales, employees across the United States have noticed a decrease in their hours at work for the past few months, according to Buzzfeed News.
Starting in May 2016, locations around the country were allegedly allotted far fewer hours than both what they need and what they typically were given.
"Someone seemingly flipped a switch on the labor model," one manager, who has worked for the coffee chain for almost a decade, told BuzzFeed News.
"The whole month of July has been the tightest in scheduling I’ve ever experienced," said another manager.
Based on an internal company email, Starbucks is reportedly trying to limit labor expenses and prevent "an overspend in labor."
"With costs of raw coffee going up and minimum wage rising, they will be looking for cost efficiencies anyplace they can find them," explained Jack Russo, an analyst at Edward Jones.
"We are not trying to reduce labor," said Starbucks spokesperson Jaime Riley. "We want our stores staffed in accordance with what they each need."
A petition was created by Jaime Prater in order to address the "gross underemployment." Prater, who has worked at Starbucks for nine years, said the extremely low morale affects the customers the most.
"We want Starbucks corporate to listen to what we have to say and understand that the current labor practices are sinking morale at corporate stores," the Coworker petition read. "…What's happening currently is some of the most extreme labor cuts in Starbucks history.”
Many baristas, managers, and shift supervisors shared their stories. Some employees wished to be anonymous for fear of losing their jobs.
"If not for some of the sweetest and most understanding customers, I'm not sure i'd still be doing this job,” wrote one employee.
"As a shift supervisor, I have maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the staff I need, and we're all extremely overworked and overwhelmed,” wrote another. “Then I'm told that we're over on labor! … Without adequate staffing, we are unable to process transactions quickly enough to earn the labor we have. This nightmare needs to end, or a lot of great talent will move on."