Bloomberg pointed out the irony this week: Starbucks may be shutting down stores in the U.S., but it is investing more heavily in China at the same time.

Starbucks is closing 600 U.S. outlets and giving 12,000 U.S. employees the axe. U.S operations doubled in just four years, but economic hard times had hit the gourmet coffee industry hard in the U.S.

In China though, according to Bloomberg, Starbucks expects "to gain as more-affluent Chinese are drawn to gourmet coffee."


© booizzy

Retail sales in China gained 21.6 percent in May, close to the fastest pace in nine years. Bloomberg says that Starbucks has more than 300 stores in China and had set plans to open at least 80 outlets this year.

So is this the same thing as "moving jobs to China?" Hmmm. It's not quite like outsourcing. I can't get a cup of coffee here that was brewed in China (and if I could, I probably wouldn't want it by the time it got here). I guess it's just two separate markets that, for the moment, are going in the opposite direction...