The Seattle based coffee chain - Starbucks Coffee Co. - is planning to mass job-cuts and closure of "underperforming" stores this year.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports, the company - wobbling amid recession, due to overexpansion and plunging sales
- plans to lay off up to 6,700 jobs this year. CEO Howard Schultz announced that the job-cuts, effective mid-February, will hurt nearly
6,000 store employees, and 700 corporate employees - almost one-half from the company headquarters.

In addition to the layoffs, the popular coffee seller intends closing nearly 300 more stores, the supposedly "underperforming" ones, this fiscal year. While 200 stores will be closed in US, the remaining will be the company's overseas stores.

Making public its first-quarter results on Wednesday, Starbucks said that its revenues had dropped 6 percent from the previous year, largely because of a 9 percent fall in its same-store sales.

In a company memorandum, Schultz said that the new announcements were part of Starbucks' cost-cutting moves, and added: "The forecast by experts suggests the economic situation will get worse before it gets better."

The CEO said that the coffee chain had apparently been hit by consumers having curtailed spending on its pricey coffee. Hence, the new marketing strategy of the company would aim at two things - clearing customer misperceptions about affordability, and drawing customers at different times of the day, especially in the morning!