The last six months have been full of news about layoffs by giant technology companies such as Meta, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. But there is one name that seems 'immune' from the brunt of the layoff storm, namely Apple. How come?
While the reasons for layoffs vary across companies, the vast majority of those that did layoff blamed weaker macroeconomic conditions and the possibility of a future recession as reasons for tightening their belts.
However, one other factor that is no less important is the rapid growth of technology companies in the last two years.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made internet services and applications an integral part of everyday life. This surge in users certainly has a positive impact on the business of technology companies.
After sales and profits have continued to soar in 2021, the technology company has also expanded its workforce by recruiting new employees and hopes that this success will continue in the future.
Of course that hope is not in accordance with reality. The world economy is sluggish due to various factors, company growth is slowing down, and companies have to make adjustments, one of which is with layoffs.
But it's a different story with Apple. While other technology companies have been scrambling to recruit new employees, Apple's hiring rate over the last two years has not increased significantly and they have not announced any layoffs either.
As of September 2022, Apple has 164,000 employees which includes corporate employees and retail staff for its stores. Compared to the same period in 2021, the increase in recruitment was only around 6.5% or the equivalent of 10,000 employees.
Apple also opened recruitment more carefully in 2020, adding fewer than 7,000 new employees in the year before September 2021, as quoted by CNBC, Saturday (21/1/2023).
Unlike Alphabet, Google's parent company, which recently announced layoffs of 12,000 employees. In 2020, Alphabet hired 16,000 new employees, followed by 21,000 new employees in 2021.
But the growth in headcount at Alphabet has been somewhat more constant even before the pandemic. As of the end of 2021, Alphabet has a total of 156,500 employees.