Why Apple is not firing staff like Google, Meta & others

Apple Inc is tightening its belts to avoid downsizing full-time employees. 

The world's most valuable company is rattled by a spate of resignations over the past few years. 

Fears of a financial slide prompted the firm to take drastic measures such as delay in disbursing bonuses for some corporate divisions and going for further cost-cutting.

Apple's Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, now weary of the unprecedented exodus of top executives and himself took pay cuts earlier, faces a difficult predicament due to a sudden turn of events in recent times.

Despite having faced a tough situation, the tech giant is taking all measures to avoid reducing headcounts. Though most of its major tech peers have already cut jobs — Apple wanted to avoid taking such a step.

Apple garnered more profit than any other tech company, raking in $30 billion last quarter alone. Apple is placed comfortably with $165 billion in its kitty, and it is conscious about protecting its stable image. 

The tech giant's stock has gone up about 20% this year. It has set in motion measures to unveil a new mixed-reality headset and operating system, a platform the company hopes will set it up for the post-iPhone age in three months from now.

At this juncture, the firm can't afford to go for layoffs as such steps would be far more damaging to company morale.

Though cutbacks at Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google sent shockwaves across the market, Apple has restrained itself from taking such drastic steps.

Apple’s top executives, who are considered some of the most tactical minds in the industry, avoided taking hard decisions on employee headcount which would either signal that they’d made a strategic blunder or the global economy is in even worse shape than people feared.

In both ways, it could send ripples through different industries and economies. 

Apple has adopted a cautious approach unlike most of its rivals which went on hiring sprees during the pandemic. For instance, Meta has gone great guns on metaverse venture, spending billions on a vision that has yet to pay off. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google ventured into uncertain territories.

Apple has also suffered at times. Sales fell 5% last quarter, and they’re expected to be down by a similar amount in the current period through judicious maneuvering held Apple in good stead. 

The tech giant is out to make its operations more efficient — a process that began last summer, earlier than the belt-tightening efforts at many other big companies.

Measures to avoid layoffs

The company has decided to delay bonuses for corporate teams that previously received payouts twice a year. Now, those teams will get their entire bonus in October, matching the schedule of most colleagues. 

Apple has already factored that money into its finances, it gets to keep that cash on hand a little longer. 

Some projects, including new home devices like a HomePod with a screen, have been pushed back until next year at the earliest. That allows Apple to allocate its research and development budget to more pressing projects. The company has cut its budgets across several teams.

Apple has completely paused hiring on some teams and severely limited hiring on others.

When some people leave their positions, Apple is keeping those roles open rather than filling them.

In some cases, Apple is limiting the ability for employees — both in corporate and retail — to transfer to other departments or stores, a process that typically has accompanying costs. 

Last year, Apple laid off many of its recruiters on contracts (non-full-time employees). It also quietly cut contractors in recent weeks who had been stationed within engineering teams and other groups.

Travel budgets have been significantly reduced, and trips now require the approval of senior executives. For some departments, travel has been halted completely for the foreseeable future other than for business-critical reasons. 

Managers have become as strict as ever about office attendance — employees are typically expected to come in on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays — and some workers believe this is a harbinger of the company firing employees who don’t meet the requirement. 

While some of these moves have been upsetting to Apple’s rank-and-file staff, they’re mild compared to what many companies have done. Combined, Apple’s top rivals have laid off more than 50,000 people in recent months. That’s equal to nearly half of Apple’s corporate workforce. 

Measures taken by Apple have worked in its favour. Cook himself has said that layoffs at Apple would be a “last resort.” But as an expert in the PR game, he was quick not to entirely rule them out.