(RoyalPatriot.com )- Many major Big Tech firms have instituted massive layoffs in recent months, yet Apple has to this point avoided doing so.
While Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon have eliminated tens of thousands of their workers, Apple has for the most part remained firm in their employee head count. But, On The Money is reporting now that Apple is starting to eliminate some of their contractors rather quietly.
The media outlet cited sources who have direct knowledge of the situation, and they say that the maker of the iPhone and other devices has begun to cut ties with hundreds of its contractors. While these people aren’t employees of Apple – as they’re employed by an outside agency that works alongside of Apple on certain projects – it’s still a major way that the company can cut costs.
The sources have said that the tech company isn’t waiting until the contracts are up for renewal, which typically occurs between every 12 and 15 months. Instead, they are firing these contractors outright now.
One of the contractors told the media outlet that they were blindsided by the move, as they were previously assured by management at Apple that all of their jobs were indeed safe. The source even said that many employees were gloating just a few weeks earlier that Apple never over-hired like many other tech companies had done.
In the recent past, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, said that layoffs were a “last resort kind of thing” for the company. According to these sources, Apple isn’t viewing these firings of contractors as actual layoffs, but rather as general cost-cutting measures for the company.
One of the benefits to Apple of getting rid of these contractors over laying off full-time workers is that they don’t have to pay any severance or even unemployment benefits. They also are more easily able to avoid potential lawsuits from employees who might allege that they were wrongfully terminated.
Apple doesn’t disclose the full size of its workforce of contractors. In the past, though, reports have shown that Apple has had thousands of different contractors throughout their business. Staffing firms have helped in the past launch events, create Apple Maps and run other project management tasks.
While Apple is keeping these layoffs quiet, they are rather small compared to what some of its competitors have done.
In 2022 alone, tech companies throughout the country laid off at least 160,000 employees, according to tech job tracking site Layoffs.fyi. In just the first two months of this year, there have been 100,000 more job cuts in the tech sector.
More than 50,000 jobs have been shed by some of the “big boys” in tech, including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google. These companies have all claimed that, when the pandemic was at its height, they hired too many people and are now forced to thin out their workforce to come back down to normal.
