Apple reports that its employee pool grew during 2024, despite the company conducting four rounds of small-scale layoffs during the year. Apple sprung back from lower employment numbers in 2023, and the company now has as many employees as it did in 2022.
In a filing by Apple last week, the company indicated that as of late September, it employed approximately 164,000 full-time employees around the globe, a 3,000 employee jump from the 161,000 full-time people the Cupertino-based company employed in 2023. Apple’s “full-time” employment count include corporate employees working at Apple offices around the globe, as well as retail employees at its stores.
Apple’s full-time employee counts for the last seven years:
- 2024: 164,000
- 2023: 161,000
- 2022: 164,000
- 2021: 154,000
- 2020: 147,000
- 2019: 137,000
- 2018: 132,000
Apple laid off small numbers of employees in four rounds of layoffs during this year.
Apple relocated a Siri evaluation team from its San Diego, California facility to a facility in Austin, Texas in early 2024. Members of the 120-person-strong team who were not willing to physically move to Texas were laid off.
In April, Apple laid off 600+ employees when it canceled its long-running electric vehicle project and also canceled its microLED display project for Apple Watch.
When Apple announced the end of the Apple Car project in March, the company told the approximately 2,000 employees involved in the project of its cancellation. Some of the employees were transferred to work on other projects.
Employees that were not moved were told they had 90 days to apply for open positions in the company. While there are no available numbers about how many employees were able to find other work at Apple, but considering the vehicle team included car designers and automotive engineers, it is possible that several of the affected employees may not have possessed skills that could be applied in other departments.
Apple also dropped its microLED displays development for the Apple Watch, so it is likely that some of the above mentioned lay-offs might have been due to that project being terminated. Employees who did not wish to relocate or could not find another role within Apple received severance pay.
August saw Apple cut around 100 employees from its Services division. The layoffs were primarily on the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore teams. However, the Apple News team employment numbers also took a hit. Laid off employees were given a 60-day window to secure another position in the company before their employment was terminated.
Apple has so far managed to avoid the wide-scale layoffs other tech companies have conducted over the past few years. Google and Microsoft have laid off several thousand employees over the last two years.
