Starbucks to create 240,000 jobs globally in four years

US coffee shop chain Starbucks pledged to create almost a quarter of a million jobs worldwide by 2021 during its annual shareholders meeting.

Of the 240,000 jobs Starbucks plans to add, 68,000 of those will be based in the US, while it will also attempt to grow its business in several other countries, particularly China.

The Seattle-headquartered corporate is currently opening stores in the Asian country at a rate of one every day. 12,000 new stores are set to open globally in the next four years in order to support the job growth.

During the shareholders meeting, chief executive officer Howard Schultz, who is expected to stand down in April and be replaced by chief operating officer Kevin Johnson, pointed towards the company’s recent record of hiring military veterans and “Opportunity Youth” participants as a sign that it is committed to continuing job creation.

He reiterated the company's intent to open 12,000 new stores globally and 3,400 new stores in the US by the 2021 fiscal year.

In an interview with CNN earlier this week, both Schultz and Johnson called on US President Donald Trump to clarify his trade policies in order for businesses to adapt accordingly.

"Certainly, as an American brand, sometimes politics in the United States can carry over," Johnson said. "But we're going to stay focused on the things we can control and the things that we do well."

"I think that Starbucks has demonstrated over 40 plus years our unique ability to navigate successfully through lots of cyclical changes in the economy and political administrations," Schultz added. "I'm very confident that we will be able to do that."