It was bound to happen eventually. The widespread layoffs sweeping across the tech industry are finally hitting Apple. According to a report from Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter, Apple will eliminate roles in its corporate retail teams. To be clear, these are not retail employee roles, such as those who work in Apple retail stores. Rather they are corporate jobs at Apple whose roles involve overseeing Apple retail works of some kind.
Specifically, Bloomberg reports, the corporate retail team roles that are on the chopping block include those who work on the development and preservation teams. These team members are responsible for the upkeep and even construction of Apple retail stores around the globe. While the cuts will be hard for those impacted, Bloomberg says the number of positions cut will be “likely very small”—a stark contrast to the rounds of mass layoffs at Apple’s competitors including Amazon, Meta, and Google, which combined have cut tens of thousands of positions since late last year.
One of the reasons Apple has been able to avoid such steep layoffs is that the company did not go on a hiring binge to the extent its competitors did during the early years of the pandemic. While this is the first time layoffs have struck Apple since they began hitting the tech industry last year, Apple has eliminated some contractor roles before now in order to cut costs. It’s unknown if more job cuts are coming for Apple employees in the future.
Apple has reportedly told impacted employees that they will be able to reapply for similar roles at the company and those who do not land a new position will receive up to four months’ pay. As of September 2022, Apple had 164,000 employees worldwide.
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