Starbucks Korea said on the 21st that it will resume its senior barista training support program with the Korea Senior Club Association starting next month. The aim is to enhance seniors' barista expertise and support the creation of stable jobs.
To provide more seniors with training opportunities, Starbucks plans to open a second win-win training center within the year. To that end, on the 20th, Starbucks held a signing ceremony with the Korea Senior Club Association at the Starbucks Support Center to open the win-win training center and began full-fledged preparations.
The new training center will serve as a hub for training senior baristas along with the Gunpo win-win training center currently in operation. Starbucks expects that when both sites run simultaneously, the annual training capacity will increase to 1,000 people, double the current level.
Since 2019, Starbucks has continued a senior barista job support program with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Senior Club Association. At the win-win training center set up at the Gunpo Senior Club, it is operating the curriculum based on in-house instructors and talent donations from winners of the senior latte art competition.
As of the first half of this year, more than 2,000 senior baristas have completed the training, and total training hours have reached 7,000. Graduates are working as baristas in various settings, including cafes run by senior clubs nationwide.
Starbucks will restart training next month and run a capacity-building program for about 500 senior baristas through the end of the year.
The curriculum is practice-focused for on-site needs, including coffee extraction, milk steaming, and latte art. It also includes theory classes to learn major coffee-growing regions and origin-specific flavors, coffee-related knowledge, and customer service know-how.
Starbucks will also hold the "Senior Barista Latte Art Competition," which it has hosted annually since 2022, in the second half of this year. Preliminary entries will be accepted starting at the end of this month. Preliminary and final rounds will be held sequentially from September to October.
Shin Dong-woo, CEO of Starbucks Korea (SCK Company), said, "We are very pleased to resume the meaningful senior job-creation support program that we carried out with Starbucks' sincerity," and added, "We plan to steadily expand Starbucks partners' talent donations and support so that more senior baristas can realize their passion and dreams for coffee going forward."