Apple, the second largest company in the world, laid off over 600 employees in late March 2024. On the back of rising geopolitical uncertainty and potentially slowing global economy, we consider what chance do other companies have.
Apparently, we may be able to pinpoint the current news to just Apple and the tech sector.
Apple’s Retrenchments May Be Company-Specific
If we just looked at this latest retrenchment exercise by Apple, it does look company specific. In Apple’s case, the layoffs were attributed to its cancelled electric car project, as well as its smartwatch display project.
According to Bloomberg, Apple had close to 2,000 employees working on the electric car project. And, we should not be surprised to see Apple’s retrenchment figures creeping up this year.
While it can be argued that these failed projects may be due to the tough economic climate currently, the secretive multi-billion dollars EV project has actually been ongoing for over a decade – through the COVID-19 pandemic.
These failed projects itself may not have major implications on Apple’s Singapore employees.
Apple Has Not Retrenched As Aggressively As Other Tech Giants
Another reason for Apple’s retrenchments may be that it could be finally catching up to its peers in the technology sphere.
Over the years, Apple has been on a hiring spree. From its height of 164,000 employees in 2022, it has now reduced just 1.8% of its workforce, or about 3,000 people, to 161,000.
Compared to Amazon, Google and Meta, it has not cut as many employees yet. For example, Amazon has cut about 6.0% of its employees, nearly 97,000 people, since its height in 2022. Google has cut about 4.1% of its headcount, or over 7,700 people. Meta has reduced 22.2% of its employees, cutting over 19,000 people.
Now, it might be the case that Apple’s layoff numbers are finally catching up, rather than a result of the challenging economic landscape.
Over-Employment In The Technology Sector?
Since work-from-home became more prevalent after pandemic in 2020, there has many articles (like these on Forbes, Economist and Vanity Fair) on “over-employment” in the tech sector. This mainly involves tech sector workers two-timing or even “three-timing” their employers – bragging about how much they are able to earn and how they have been able to evade detection.
It may be that back-to-office requirements has resulted in employees having to choose which job(s) to keep.
Read Also: Is It Legal For An Employee To Have Two Jobs (With Two CPF Contributions)?
Arguments That Retrenchments Not As Bad, But It’s Still There
While the arguments above point to retrenchments not being systemic, and potentially just Apple-specific or tech sector-specific, we cannot ignore the reality: retrenchments are creeping up.
In particular, we have also been seeing increasing retrenchment statistics in Singapore released by MOM – with the retrenchment rate doubling in 2023 compared to 2022.
Read Also: Why Singapore Employees Need To Be Ready For Retrenchment In 2024
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