Starbucks is laying off more than 200 corporate employees as it moves forward with the turnaround strategy it began two years ago under CEO Brian Niccol.

The coffee giant on Thursday published a layoff notice under the WARN Act, the federal statute requiring advance notice of large job cuts. The law generally mandates 60 days' notice for mass layoffs and plant closures at employers with 100 or more workers. The filing clarifies plans to eliminate more than 200 corporate roles, after the company had previously disclosed intentions to reduce its corporate workforce by about 300 jobs.

According to the WARN filing, about 120 of the separations involve employees on a support team responsible for designing and developing coffeehouses who declined the opportunity to relocate from Seattle, Washington, to Nashville, Tennessee. Another roughly 104 cuts are organizational changes resulting from restructuring plans the company detailed in May.

The first separations are expected on Oct. 19, 2026, with all of them completed by Nov. 1, 2026.

Starbucks indicated that the organizational changes do not alter its coffeehouse strategy, and that it is continuing to pursue its "third place experience" of uplifting coffeehouses while expanding and developing its portfolio.

The filing represents the last component of Starbucks' remaining organizational changes from the restructuring announced in May, positioning the company to focus on improving the experience at its coffeehouses for its employee partners and customers, according to the company.

As part of the reorganization, Starbucks is building a new regional corporate office in Nashville with a price tag of $100 million that will house about 2,000 employees, while keeping its headquarters in Seattle. Nashville has drawn a series of corporate relocations in recent years, including Oracle's decision to move its headquarters to the city.

Niccol took the helm at Starbucks in September 2024, becoming the company's third CEO within a two-year period, and put the company on a turnaround plan designed to spur more business in its coffeehouses. Niccol arrived from Chipotle, where he was CEO, and the Starbucks effort has been branded "Back to Starbucks."

That plan has included efforts to redesign store interiors to encourage customers to linger, along with "personal touches" such as writing names on cups and serving drinks in mugs. Starbucks has also worked to ensure proper staffing at stores, streamline mobile orders, let customers handle their own condiments, and committed to having all drinks ready in four minutes or less.

Last year, Starbucks moved to close some underperforming stores and cut 900 non-retail partner roles, while also freezing many open positions as it restructured.

With the company describing the WARN filing as the final piece of the May restructuring, attention now turns to how the store-level investments and organizational changes are reflected in Starbucks' quarterly results, which report measures such as comparable store sales.