It seems like we can’t go more than a few hours without news of layoffs these days. Today it was another 6,700 jobs and another 300 under performing stores ^[1] from Starbucks.

On the (somewhat) positive side, CEO Howard Schultz will take a massive paycut ^[2] (from 1.2 million in 2008 to 10K in 2009). Now, while I don’t really expect that paycut to result in him ’sharing the pain’ with his laid off employees, it’s at least a good faith step for him to take and I applaud the effort.

In other interesting Starbucks cost-cutting news, they are eliminating the constant brewing of decaf coffee from their stores after the noon hour. Apparently this will result in a $400 million savings by September. Don’t worry, you can still get your decaf coffee, you’ll just have to wait the 4 minutes it takes for a pot to brew.

Now this move actually surprises me. I don’t drink decaf. I’m lucky that my body doesn’t have a problem with caffeine, even if I have it right before bed. But I do know people who can’t tolerate the caffeine, and for most of those people, it’s a lot more important for them to have decaf after noon than it is before. So I’d actually expect Starbucks to sell a higher percentage of decaf coffee AFTER noon than before.

It’s no secret that I prefer the small, independent coffee shops to Starbucks. But regardless of my coffee choices, I still feel badly for Starbucks employees. Here’s hoping they all land on their feet.