Tech giant Apple is set to lay off more than 600 employees in its California offices, marking its first major wave of job cuts after the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
According to the Epoch Times, 614 employees across multiple Apple offices in Santa Clara, California will be impacted by the impending job cuts. "The company did not indicate which departments or projects the affected employees were associated with," it said.
Per Apple's filings under the state's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act posted by the California Employment Development Department, the company informed the employees of the layoffs on March 28. The job terminations are set to take effect on May 27. (Related: YouTube lays off 100 employees amid wider job cuts at parent Google.)
The Epoch Times mentioned that the layoffs followed reports of Apple shelving a self-driving car initiative. It added: "Apple hasn't been forced into the same kind of downsizing as its tech peers, largely because the iPhone maker grew more slowly than rivals during the pandemic." The Cupertino, California-based tech firm reported approximately 161,000 full-time equivalent employees, per a recent regulatory filing.
While the WARN Act notice doesn't specify which projects the employees were working on, Bloomberg News reported that most of the affected employees were working at buildings related to its cancelled electric car project. Meanwhile, others were working at a facility for its next-generation screen development. Apple wound down both of these projects toward the end of February.
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Apple cancels plans to make EVs, next-gen displays
Apple commenced its electric vehicle (EV) project, known internally as "Project Titan," in 2014. But on Feb. 27 – seven years after starting it – Apple told employees that Project Titan would be cancelled. Bloomberg News reported at the time that some remaining employees who were working on the car project would be shifted to Apple's generative AI projects.
Around the same time as Project Titan's cancellation, Apple reportedly also ended efforts to design and develop its next-generation displays. The displays were supposed to be added to the company's Apple Watch before potentially going into the company's other devices.
The company founded by Steve Jobs had been a notable exception as other tech companies slashed their workforces over the past two years. There was a big surge in hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people spent more time and money online and Big Tech firms are still larger than they were before the pandemic. Still, as growth slows, companies are focusing on cutting costs.
Amazon announced earlier this week a fresh round of layoffs, this time at its cloud computing business AWS. In recent months, the video game maker Electronic Arts said it was cutting about five percent of its workforce, Sony said it was axing about 900 jobs in its PlayStation division, Cisco Systems revealed plans to lay off more than 4,000 workers and the social media company Snap, owner of Snapchat, announced it was slashing 10 percent of its global workforce.
Over 57,700 employees have been laid off across 235 tech companies in 2024 alone as of April 5, according to Layoffs.fyi, a platform that tracks job cuts in the tech industry.
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