Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), the world’s largest coffee chain, is spearheading a multi-company initiative to hire 100,000 young minority workers over the next three years.
Companies involved in the program, aimed at the estimated 5.6 million Americans ages 16 to 24 who are neither studying nor working, include Starbucks, Walmart, Target, JCPenney, Macy's, JPMorgan Chase and Hilton, according to a joint statement.
The initiative will provide "opportunity youth" with access to apprenticeships, internships, and training programs, as well as part-time and full-time jobs.
The program will begin in Chicago, where the companies hope to recruit employees for about 200 positions at the Chicago Opportunity Fair & Forum next month. It will then expand to other cities around the country.
At 18.1 percent, the unemployment rate for workers age 16 to 19 remains more than three times as high as the 5.3 percent jobless rate for the entire work force. Unemployment among young people has remained stubbornly high, rising a full percentage point since February, even as other economic yardsticks have improved.
“By using our scale to create pathways to affordable education and meaningful employment for these young men and women, we're strengthening both our workforce and our economy," Starbucks founder and chief executive officer Howard Schultz said in a statement today.
Schultz has frequently involved Starbucks in social issues—sometimes triggering controversy, as with “Race Together” initiative early this year to prompt people to discuss race relations while buying their morning coffee.
Job creation has been a central cause. Schultz in 2011 teamed Starbucks up with community financial institutions for a program called “Create Jobs for USA,” in which donations from Starbucks customers, employees and others were pooled to fund community business lending. In 2013, Starbucks committed to hiring at least 10,000 military veterans and their spouses by 2018.
Shares of Starbucks rose 1.7 percent to $55.50 at 9:50 a.m. in New York, expanding this year’s rally to 35 percent.