Apple Announces Plans to Lay Off A Small Amount of Its Workforce

Giant tech company Apple has announced plans to lay off a small portion of its workforce.

The tech company is eliminating a few roles within its corporate retail teams, making it the first known job cuts since the current economic downturn.

While the number of positions being eliminated cannot be ascertained which is however a small amount, people familiar with the story disclose that Apple is shedding positions in what it calls its development and preservation teams. These groups are responsible for the construction and upkeep of Apple retail stores and other of its facilities around the world.

Apple disclosed to employees that these are not layoffs but a streamlining effort that was necessitated to improve the upkeep of stores globally while noting that the company will provide support to affected workers.

With this latest move, Apple has told employees impacted that they would have the ability to reapply for a number of roles similar to their jobs. Meanwhile, those who don’t take a new role will get as much as four months of pay.

Apple’s minor job cuts during this uncertain economic period compared to other tech companies that have laid off a huge part of their workforce doesn’t come as a surprise owing to the fact that the tech giant didn’t expand its workforce as quickly as many big tech companies during the covid-19 pandemic.

Compared to the other big tech companies, Apple scaled its workforce at a relatively slow pace and has generally followed the same hiring rate since 2016. Its headcount only increased 20% from 2020 to 2022, compared with a 60% gain at Alphabet and a near-doubling at Amazon.

According to reports, Apple has made extensive efforts to avoid corporate layoffs by cutting its budgets and reducing its contractor workforce, which covers recruiters, security guards, and on-contract engineers. Apple’s last corporate layoff was reported before the commencement of the pandemic.

Investors King understands that in February this year, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook disclosed that layoffs are the last resort to navigate the economic downturn while noting that he will find other ways to manage costs instead of letting go of workers. He however did not rule out the possibility of layoffs entirely.