Apple Cuts Dozens of Sales Jobs Globally as Part of Major Operations Streamlining

As part of a significant restructure of its sales division, Apple Inc. stated that it had eliminated dozens of positions. According to Bloomberg, the corporation is changing the way it works with government, commercial, and educational clients, which will result in the elimination of a number of positions within its international sales teams. Over the last two weeks, Apple has informed the impacted employees. Several teams within the sales organisation were more severely impacted than others by the layoffs.

Account managers who worked with major government, corporate, and educational clients, as well as staff members who oversaw Apple's briefing centres—locations where institutional clients were hosted and new products were showcased—were among the people laid off.

Exact Numbers of Layoffs Still Not Revealed

Although it could not provide any figures, Apple acknowledged that the restructure is underway. According to an Apple representative, the business is making certain changes to its sales staff that impact a few positions in order to reach even more customers. Apple is still hiring, and current employees are eligible to apply for new positions.

The current layoffs come after a previous round of layoffs in Australia and New Zealand that eliminated about 20 positions. Employees who were laid off have until January 20 to find other employment at Apple. Those that don't will receive a severance payout upon leaving the organisation. Affected employees have been invited to apply for a number of positions that Apple has posted on its recruitment website. Internally, the company claims the change is aimed at streamlining the sales personnel and removing overlapping roles. However, according to Bloomberg, some affected employees think the true goal is to cut internal expenses by shifting more sales activity to third-party resellers, or "the channel".

Government Sales Team Highly Affected

Those impacted include a number of long-time employees, including managers who have worked for the organisation for 20 to 30 years. One key area of reduction is the government sales team, which works with US departments such as the Department of Defence and the Department of Justice. In the past, Apple has refrained from making significant layoffs; Cook refers to them as a "last resort".

When a corporation does terminate a position, it usually does so in a way that prevents the worker adjustment and retraining warnings, or WARN notices, that are mandated by US labour law. Job losses are nevertheless frequent in the larger tech sector. While Meta Platforms Inc. has eliminated several hundred staff in its AI section, Amazon Inc. recently revealed plans to eliminate around 14,000 employees. One of Amazon's largest layoff announcements to date was made.

In an attempt to cut expenses following significant hiring during the pandemic, the corporation has reportedly terminated over 30,000 corporate positions, according to a Reuters story. Despite having 1.55 million employees worldwide, these layoffs amount to almost 10% of the company's 350,000 corporate employees. Since the 27,000 layoffs that were implemented in late 2022 and early 2023, this will be the company's biggest job loss to date.