Why is Luckin coffee reducing employee working hours?

Winter marks the traditional off-season for coffee and tea drinks, and foot traffic and order volumes fall. Part-time staff at Luckin coffee report sharply reduced schedules, some working only one day a week or about thirty hours a month. Full-time employees have also seen hours drop from over 180 to between 110 and 170, which lowers base pay.

To reach target hours, some employees proactively support busier stores. The coffee industry follows seasonal demand, so scheduling adjusts when sales slow. Drawing on accounts from multiple employees, the adjustments show how part-time and full-time situations differ. Industry workers are advised to plan ahead and prepare countermeasures before hours are cut further in the off-season.

After the start of winter, the coffee and tea beverage market enters its traditional off-season, with store foot traffic and order volumes declining noticeably. Recently, many part-time employees at Luckin have reported that their scheduled working hours have been significantly cut back. Some are scheduled for only one day a week, or even just around thirty hours for the entire month. Full-time employees have not been spared either, with working hours dropping from over 180 to between 110 and 170, which has also affected their base pay. To make up the target hours, some employees have no choice but to proactively support busier stores. What exactly is causing this widespread reduction in working hours? How do the situations of part-time and full-time employees differ? This article, drawing on accounts from multiple employees, sorts out the logic behind the current scheduling adjustments at Luckin stores and reminds industry workers to plan ahead and prepare countermeasures.

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For many young people, finding a side job to supplement daily expenses without affecting their main work is a common practice, and working part-time at a coffee shop is one good option among them.

If the hourly wage at the store is ideal, then even if personal matters prevent them from filling the whole month's schedule, as long as they are not late and do not leave early, the final pay they receive is still decent. Moreover, with chain coffee brands now blooming everywhere, you can run into a branch after just a few steps, and big names like Luckin and Starbucks have part-time recruitment notices up year-round, so for this group, finding a temporary job to tide them over is not difficult.

However, recently, many part-time workers have posted complaints on social platforms, saying that Luckin has begun controlling working hours, with November schedules shrinking significantly compared with the previous month, and the number of hours still barely reaching the target only by going to other stores to "support" them. Some social part-timers have even been scheduled for only one day a week, and often just half a day, about four or five hours, with many spending nearly half a month or more in rest status.

As the saying goes, more work brings more pay. Reduced attendance not only means a drop in total scheduled hours, but the actual hourly wage also declines accordingly, so the final take-home pay naturally shrinks sharply. Faced with this situation, these part-time workers say they simply cannot bear it, and if this trend continues, they may not even have shifts to work.

A current employee once explained that Luckin's hourly workers fall into three categories: student part-timers, part-time plus, and social part-timers. Among them, student part-timers and social part-timers are relatively free, with no mandatory hourly requirements; part-time plus employees, however, must meet a minimum monthly attendance standard, usually around 120 to 150 hours, with an upper limit of no more than 200 hours, and they need to obtain shift supervisor qualifications. But once they pass the qualification certification, their hourly wage increases somewhat, and they also receive priority in scheduling.

According to the descriptions of these part-time workers whose hours were forced down, starting in October, everyone's scheduled hours fell to varying degrees. A large number of part-time plus employees said that their attendance days that month were only about ten-plus days, with scheduled hours below one hundred, far short of the "guaranteed hours" originally promised. In order not to "starve," they have already begun looking for other ways out. The hour control situation for social part-timers and student part-timers is even more prominent, with some working only around thirty hours for the entire month.

In fact, besides part-time staff, many Luckin full-time employees have also suffered working hour compression. What was originally two rest days plus 7.5 hours a day, with monthly hours dropping from over 180 to between 110 and 170, and at some stores full-time hours account for only thirty percent, while some employees have been in an under-hours state for two consecutive months. You should know that insufficient hours lead to deductions from base pay, so many workers can only proactively go to support busier new stores in order to make up the target hours.

Regarding the recent phenomenon of widespread working hour compression at Luckin stores, some employees analyze that the root cause is that the coffee industry has entered the off-season.

As the cold winter arrives, the tea and coffee industry enters its sales off-season, customer traffic decreases, order volume plunges, and cup output is far less booming than in the summer peak season. During peak season, several people often need to be scheduled for a shift, but now one person on duty is enough during low periods. The company emphasizes meeting labor efficiency standards, and stores must control cups per hour; if they fail to meet the standard, they get criticized, so they adjust by cutting working hours. As store managers, they are actually quite helpless.

Looking at the present moment, the industry's off-season has only just begun. Some Luckin workers have revealed that some stores are continuously recruiting part-timers for the Spring Festival, while the working hours of current staff continue to be cut. If these part-time workers still want to earn a higher income, perhaps their only option is to find another employer as soon as possible.

Image source: Xiaohongshu screenshot

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.