It wouldn’t feel like 2024 if we didn’t wrap up the week with reports of job cuts, and this time, we need to talk about Apple’s layoffs decision that affects over 700 workers. The reasons behind the Apple layoffs are quite apparent as the company has begun to shut down some of the major projects they’ve been working on for years now. The Apple job cuts are mainly linked to the car project shutdown, which was an ambition that the company held on to for a really long time before calling it quits. Only weeks after having learnt of the termination of the project, we are now seeing evidence of the company’s WARN notice filings in California. The resulting Apple job cuts will affect over 600 employees but some sources like 9To5Mac suggest the numbers could go over 700.
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An Unfortunate Turn of Events: Apple’s Layoffs Decisions
From our understanding of the situation, the Apple job cuts are primarily due to its EV car project shutdown. Named Project Titian, the tech gadget maker had ambitions to develop its own electric vehicle and had guarded details about its progress very closely for a long time—possibly since 2015. Bloomberg had even suggested that the Apple EV car could have a 2028 launch date, which implied that significant progress had been made in developing the tech already. However, there are said to have been high turnover rates with the staff working on the project as well as other issues from the start, so perhaps the Apple layoffs and the closure of the car project have been a long time coming.
In addition to the car project shutdown, Apple job cuts have also been linked to another project in particular, this one more closely tied to their existing product lines. Apple had been working on developing its own Micro-LEDs for the Apple Smartwatch, hoping to power its own device rather than purchasing from third-party sources. Now it seems Apple is shutting down this business as well considering the screens “were difficult to produce in sufficient quantities.”
58 employees from one of the company’s Santa Clara offices are believed to be losing their jobs, and according to 9To5Mac, this office belongs to the company specializing in Micro-LED displays.
Apple’s layoffs decision comes as a disappointment after the company had managed to maintain its distance from large-scale layoffs for quite a while. From the outside, it looked like this was not about to change considering their products had continued to perform well enough. For now, the company has not made any of their future plans known. We remain in the dark about what kind of support, if any, has been extended to the existing employees.
What’s Next For the Apple Employees?
The reasons behind Apple’s layoffs make it very obvious that letting employees go would be the obvious way forward. The engineers and hardware experts hired for making a car, likely do not have skills that could be transferred to other projects currently open at the Cupertino company. Online reports indicate that Apple had already given employees an early notice that Project Titan was coming to an end so this will not have come as a surprise to them at least.
Reports on Apple’s job cuts mention 700 employees but there were supposed to be over 2,000 employees working on the car project alone so a significant number of them must have been reassigned. Some of the employees were moved to other departments to continue their roles at a different wing of the company. Those who were not reassigned had the opportunity to apply to any open positions they were eligible for. The rest have likely just been informed of the decision to be released from their roles, along with what support the company is willing to extend right now.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification or WARN requires companies to notify employees regarding a shutdown or layoff at least 60 days in advance so these employees should have two months to figure out their next plan of action. In a best-case scenario, all of these employees will find their way forward towards their next role.
