Apple Is Laying Off Employees for the First Time

Some Apple employees might find themselves unemployed soon.

Apple is reportedly laying off a few of its employees for the first time, possibly cutting costs to lower its expenses for 2023.

For those unaware, Apple is one of the tech companies that haven't resorted to mass layoffs to lower its expenditures and turn a profit since other companies started doing so, per The Verge.

Apple Layoffs Details

Apple is allegedly laying off a few employees its company that play a small role within its corporate retail teams, per Bloomberg's sources, who are people familiar with the matter. The sources asked not to be named due to Apple not announcing its intention to do so.

To be specific, the tech is laying off some of its employees in what it calls its development and preservation teams, which are responsible for the construction and upkeep of Apple retail stores and other facilities worldwide. The company had already informed the employees affected by the layoffs about its intentions last week. However, while Apple is calling it a streamlining effort to help improve store upkeep globally, the employees affected are calling it a layoff, per Business Insider.

While Apple didn't mention how many of its employees it's willing to let go, the move represents a new step for the company, which avoided letting employees go through mass layoffs, unlike its many contemporaries like Google, Meta, and Amazon. You may remember that the previously mentioned tech giants were cutting costs to make themselves profitable again due to the uncertainty brought by the ongoing economic recession and inflation.

In fact, Apple is offering those it is laying off the chance to look and apply for other jobs within the company, allowing them to stay in the process. However, should any of them fail to find a new job within Apple, the company is ready and willing to offer them up to four months of severance pay.

Even with these small-scale layoffs, Apple is still thousands of employees apart from its contemporaries that have been laying off employees left, right, and center. Google had already laid off a total of 12,000 employees as of press time, while Amazon terminated 27,000 employees. Metta had already let go of 21,000 employees, while Microsoft laid off 10,000 of its employees.

Why Are Tech Giants Laying Off Employees?

Tech Giants like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta all have one thing in common: many of them grew almost immediately during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when quarantine restrictions and lockdowns forced people to stay in their homes and work or study there. During this time, demand for their products and services rose, allowing them to hire more employees to handle this sudden increase in demand, per Tech Target.

However, a combination of an economic recession, inflation, higher interest rates, overhiring, and COVID-19 pandemic job correction are forcing companies to restructure and lay off thousands of their employees.

Forbes added that technological advancements such as AI and improvements in automation created a situation where the fastest way to save money is to replace people with machines.