Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wants U.S. companies to hire again.

Beginning Tuesday, thousands of Starbucks locations across the country began encouraging customers to contribute toward small-business lending that Schultz believes will lead to job growth.

Meanwhile, his company has picked up hiring as well.

After eliminating 39,000 jobs during a two-year period that ended last fall — about 22 percent of its autumn 2008 workforce — Starbucks says it is adding jobs again.

The company expects to add more than 3,500 jobs — mostly baristas — in the United States this year, spokesman Jim Olson said. That's net new jobs, which doesn't include replacing workers who leave.

Job growth will continue next year, he said, as Starbucks ramps up store remodeling to 1,700 locations next year and adds at least 200 stores.

That's the first time Starbucks will have added U.S. stores in years. Its most recent U.S. store count of almost 11,000 shops in July was down 174 from a year earlier.

The company also plans to expand roasting operations and add a fifth U.S. roasting facility in the next 18 months, Olson said. He declined to say whether expansion plans will include Starbucks' Kent roasting plant. The chain also roasts in Sandy Run, S.C.; Carson Valley, Nev.; York, Pa.; and Amsterdam.

The coffee chain plans to release fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, but official job numbers for the Oct. 2 end to its fiscal year will not be available until later in the month.

Locally, Starbucks employs about 7,000 people in King County, including 4,000 in 236 company-operated stores. Those figures exclude locations Starbucks does not own, in places such as grocers and the airport.

The other 3,000 work at Starbucks' headquarters, its Kent roasting plant and in operations roles in the county.

Schultz's interest in spurring national job growth first surfaced in August, when he wrote a letter to other business leaders calling for a stop to campaign donations until politicians fix the country's finances. "Right now," he declared, "our economy is frozen in a cycle of fear and uncertainty. Companies are afraid to hire. Consumers are afraid to spend. Banks are afraid to lend."

The idea grew in September, when Schultz took part in an online "Conversation with America" during which he called the country's unemployment problem "the fracturing of the humanity of America."

Last month, he and the Starbucks Foundation unveiled a plan to jump-start job growth by donating $5 million to a new program created with the Opportunity Finance Network to make loans for small businesses and community organizations. That's what customers began giving money to Tuesday, with the promise that every $5 they contribute will result in $35 in loans in communities across the country.

The programs have garnered goodwill for Schultz as far away as his hometown of New York.

"Howard Schultz. God bless him," The New York Times' Joe Nocera wrote about the jobs program. He's the same columnist who sparked media buzz around Schultz last summer, after reading a letter the CEO had written to employees voicing frustration with politicians.

Whatever the attention means for Schultz, analysts say it is all good for Starbucks.

"A lot of it is more marketing than anything else," said R.J. Hottovy, an analyst who covers Starbucks for the research firm Morningstar. "Five million dollars is a small amount when a company has $2 billion in cash on its balance sheet, and it's a smart move from a perception standpoint. Helping small businesses is a nice way to elevate your profile in this environment."

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312

or mallison@seattletimes.com