Cupertino-based tech giant Apple has joined industry counterparts in instituting layoffs this week, according to a new report by Bloomberg. The job cuts will reportedly be confined to “a small number of roles within its corporate retail teams.”
The news comes one week after a security contractor retained by Apple laid off hundreds of workers, a move the company described as a shift in service providers.
When this article was published, Apple had not yet publicly stated its intention to commence the layoffs. According to reports, the eliminated roles revolve around the construction and upkeep of the company’s retail locations. It is unclear how many – if any – of these roles were tied to the corporation’s headquarters in Cupertino.
Until the news broke on Monday, Apple employees had notably escaped what their colleagues at other large technology companies could not. Rival employers in the tech industry – like Facebook’s parent company Meta, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and others – have all undergone at least one round of significant job cuts in recent months as anxiety levels around the state of the economy have risen. Several of these companies, including Meta and Amazon, have announced second rounds of layoffs over the past month.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly considered layoffs “a last resort,” raising larger questions about the health of economic conditions within the tech sector.