Apple has laid off “hundreds of contractors” over the last several days, a new report says. This comes after a report last August said that Apple had laid off at least 100 contract recruiters. Apple itself, however, has largely avoided layoffs to the scale of Google and Meta.
Layoffs reportedly hit Apple contractors
The report comes from the New York Post and explains that these are “workers technically employed by outside agencies who work alongside Apple employees on projects.” While Apple could simply wait for these contracts to expire, it has reportedly opted not to do that and instead is “firing contractors outright.”
The scale of these layoffs is unclear, with today’s report simply saying that they affect “hundreds of contractors.” It’s described as a “stealthy move to cut costs.”
Instead of waiting for contracts that are typically renewed every 12 to 15 months to expire, Apple is firing contractors outright, sources said. One contractor claimed to have been blindsided, saying Apple management had assured him that all jobs were safe.
Insiders say some contractors gripe that they are treated like second-class citizens. Deprived of stock options, health insurance and other perks, they are forced to work more than a mile away from Apple’s “spaceship” headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. at a facility which, in addition to relatively ho-hum architecture, lacks free snacks.
Apple has a large number of contractor workers on teams such as technical support and customer service. They also rely heavily on contractors for things like the localization of products and services, as well as Apple Maps.
Bloomberg reported last August that Apple had laid off “many of its contract-based recruiters in the past week, part of a push to rein in the tech giant’s hiring and spending.” It’s unclear whether the company has been continually laying off contractors since then or if what’s being reported by the New York Post is the second major round.
Tim Cook recently called layoffs a “last resort kind of thing,” whereas tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta have laid off thousands of employees recently. “We want to manage costs in other ways to the degree that we can,” Cook said.
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