Apple cuts 600 jobs after putting brakes on self-driving car

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/05/apple-cuts-600-jobs-after-winding-down-self-driving-car-project.html

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Maybe there’s just a polite convention around not saying the quiet part out loud; but Pescatore’s implied model of why companies cut jobs seems wild.

It’s true enough that Apple isn’t getting rid of people because they just don’t know how they’ll make payroll after a hard season; but he’s talking like it’s that case that drives a lot of the headcount purging; rather than a discretionary interest in making line go up.

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Especially in the case of Apple. Off the cuff, assuming 150K average salary, they can pay every employee for over 3 years with cash on hand. Less than I was expecting, honestly.

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I think that Apple’s retail locations account for a pretty solid chunk of their headcount; so a 150k average is probably significantly high. I’ve not been able to locate a breakdown between retail and non-retail employees; but I suspect that the difference in cost per full-time-equivalent is pretty dramatic.

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I generally dislike Apple products. The hardware is beautiful but I disagree with a lot of their design decisions. I’m definitely not in the bag for Apple, is what I’m saying.

I’m in the tech industry. Apple has done an exceptional job of staffing over the last few years. Many companies ran their headcount through the roof and then laid a massive amount of people off over the past couple of years, but not Apple. So I don’t really know anything about this specific case and it is always sad when people lose their jobs but of all the big tech companies Apple gets the most benefit of the doubt in situations like this from me.

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