Starbucks says it will hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years after President Donald Trump’s executive order to suspend Syrian refugees and temporary travel bans that apply to seven Muslim-majority countries.
Howard Schultz, the coffee retailer’s chairman and CEO, wrote in a letter to employees Sunday that the hiring would apply to stores worldwide and the effort would start in the United States where the focus would be on hiring immigrants “who have served with U.S. troops as interpreters and support personnel.”
“We will neither stand by, nor stand silent,” Schultz, who is a supporter of Trump’s defeated rival Hillary Clinton, wrote in a letter posted on the company’s website.
He added: “There are more than 65 million citizens of the world recognized as refugees by the United Nations, and we are developing plans to hire 10,000 of them over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business.”
During the campaign, he also criticized Trump’s plan to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s signature Obamacare health care law and other elements of Trump’s immigration plan.
But in October, Schultz, who considers himself a “life-long Democrat,” appeared to make an ill-timed prediction about his preferred candidate, declaring that he was “confident that Hillary Clinton will become” the president.
According to The Associated Press, Trump has met with CEOs at Ford, General Motors, and Boeing and asked them to create jobs in the United States, while touting each announcement about new factory jobs as a success even if those additions had been planned before his presidential victory.
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