Apple appears to be making some cuts in its recruiting department. According to a new report from VentureBeat, Apple recently has been letting go of all of its contract recruiters, as well as some of its in-house full-time recruiters. In total, these cuts affect more than 100 people and there are no signs of them being replaced.
While specific reasoning is unclear, the report notes that Apple is slowing down its recruiting efforts and “reevaluating” its efforts in that area. Apple currently does not have any job listings for recruiters, which could imply that it is not looking to replace any of the people who were let go. It’s also possible, however, that Apple is outsourcing most of its recruiting efforts to a new company.
In addition to letting go of some of its in-house recruiters, Apple is also making adjustments to the incentives setup for those that remain. Recruiters were previously given a bonus of 40 percent of a new employee’s base salary, but according to today’s report, that number has been reduced to around 10-15 percent with the possibility that it could go away entirely.
No specific reasoning immediately jumps out as to Apple’s reasoning for cutting its recruiting efforts so dramatically, but the news comes as investors and analysts have made some dark predictions for how the company’s 2016 is shaping up to be. Over the weekend, KGI anticipated that Apple could see iPhone sales in 2016 that are lower than those of 2014. Meanwhile, analysts are still fearful that company has reached “peak” iPhone and some reports have claimed that the iPhone 7 will be a mediocre update, though obviously nothing has been confirmed.
We’ve reached out to Apple for a comment on it curbing its recruiting efforts and will update if we hear back. While it’s likely nothing significant and could just be Apple outsourcing more of its efforts, it’s something to note ahead of the company’s second quarter earnings call tomorrow evening.
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Only incremental product updates year after year has consequences.
As opposed to who? Samsung? Phones get updated incrementally across the industry because science can only advance so much in a years time. Compare the original iPhone to the 6s Plus. There’s nothing incremental about the shift. The 6s is largely regarded as the best all around phone in the world 6+ months after it’s release.
Not to mention what this article is referring to is Apple laying off a handful of people. The majority of the 100 people were contractors meaning they were never official Apple employees in the first place. Considering that they employ somewhere in the range of 100,000 people this is not an indication of Apple suffering for not coming out with a 3d flying projection satellite phone. It’s simply a departmental business decision.
But hey maybe you’re right. If Apple goes out of business in the next twenty years then we can all agree that they should’ve done more.
In case you missed, this is recruiters, and not full time.
And this means Apple is doing great. If they needed more recruiters was because the company was not doing well or they had poor HR. If the employees aren’t leaving, the company doesn’t need all that recruiting.
LOL Apple is going broke, people were right, Apple without Steve Jobs is lost… You have got to be really stupid to think that Apple is firing people because of slowing iPhone sales. Apple indeed needs to step up its game, it has become somewhat stale, but let them release a new, cool looking iPhone come fall this year and people will be selling their kidneys in droves to get the iPhone 7! Has the iPhone peaked? Maybe, the market is saturated, an iPhone 4 wasn’t as cool and fast as an iPhone 5/5C and 5S, there were plenty of reasons to update but if you have an iPhone 5S, the only real reason to update to a 6 or 6S is the size, the iPhone does exactly the same and doesn’t look as good, Apple pay isn’t widely available (territory and stores wise), and to me that’s the most relevante change besides size. Plus, a lot of cheap Android phones come with 2 gigabytes of ram, fast processors and good cameras, and most people can’t tell the difference between Android versions, and when they see an iPhone retailing for 750 euros in certain European countries and an Android for 200 or less, that has similar specs… well they’d rather eat that month and get the Android. I personally don’t ever want to use an Android phone, but I can afford a new one every two years, most people really can’t.
Dude wtf. Apple has peaked hard!
I think what they are doing is just outsourcing recruiters, they didn’t announce a hiring freeze, so I believe they are still hiring, it’s just the recruiters are being outsourced, so I don’t think it’s as bas as they are painting the picture. Now, if they mandated a hiring freeze, then I would worry.
I’m sure a lot of those recruiters might actually get a job with a recruitment company that Apple is outsourcing to. So instead of hiring individuals on contract basis, they go through a recruitment company that charges less money, but does the same tasks. It’s a cost cutting measure that’s easy to cut.
Now, if they laid off 10,000 employees, then I would start to worry, but I don’t think it’s as bad as people think, at least not yet. They are still trying to open up Apple Stores in India and I believe they are also trying to build mfg facilities in India so they can cater to making products for the India market. So, Apple is still trying to open up new markets.
Well, that would not make fiscal sense. An agency will charge 25% of a salary of a new hire, if you hire just 4 people through the agency, you’ve spent more than the salary of a recruiter. Most recruiters have made the decision to go corporate or agency as well, there is not that much cross over after the first few years of a career.
Microsoft replaces its CEO, fires thousands upon thousands of employees, and writes off entire sectors of business, Google fires thousands of employees, shuts down projects left and right, consistently abandons and sells its major purchases, and restructures entire company only to report losses, Dell fires thousands of employees (again), no one even want to buy Yahoo! at this point, But Apple slows down the amount of employees it is hiring? THIS IS IT, APPLE IS IN REAL TROUBLE THIS TIME FOR SURE!
The rest of the technology industry wishes it had Apple’s problems.
Does Apple even need general recruiting anymore? The norm these days is people knocking down the doors just to get inside. The few they want to work at Apple that aren’t trying to could easily be handled by Eddy, Craig, and Bob driving around California in a sedan.
Exactly. Oh no. Apple let go of some workers and is outsourcing to a new company. Everyone sell. Apple is doomed….lol. Where do these people come from ??
Seriously, some of you guys act as if this is something we should be worried over. Calm down everyone. Apples makes BILLIONS each quarter in profits and this is not stopping anytime soon. Move along. Nothing to worry about here.
We are in a hiring freeze in my entire org.
Travel that is not business critical has been suspended.
New PO’s aren’t being approved.. This year is going to suck.
Not going to say anything until direct employee’s start getting laid off or stores start closing it’s door.
But regardless Apple can’t keep relying on the same formula. Apple really needs something new and innovative. At this point it doesn’t matter what it is.
And Google needs to release their self driving car before the Tesla Model 3.
Microsoft is a lost case, anyone can agree…
No. Apple doesn’t need something new just because tech geeks have ADD and the attention span of a 3 year old