New Delhi: Apple has reduced tens of positions in its worldwide sales team in an unusual downsizing effort to straightforwardly sell its products to corporations, colleges and government offices. The layoffs have been announced to the employees in the last two weeks, and the layoffs involved the account managers and the teams operating the high-profile briefing centres of Apple, where product demonstrations are conducted. The company reported that the reorganisation is aimed at enabling it to reach more customers and assured the affected employees that they could seek new employment within the company, reported by Bloomberg.
The layoffs came as a surprise to many people within the Apple company, where mass layoffs are not the norm even in difficult times. The move is significant in the sense that it is being made when the company is set to record almost $140 billion in revenue in the December quarter. Another device that Apple is set to launch in early next year is a new low-end laptop, which may serve to increase its penetration in the education and enterprise market.
Why Apple is restructuring its sales team?
Apple claimed that the reforms are aimed at simplifying the operations and narrowing down redundant duties among its sales staff. On the inside, leaders had positioned the move as an efficiency push, although some former employees feel the company is slowly moving sales to third-party resellers in order to lower internal expenses. Recent retrenchments are based on reduced cuts in the sales teams at Apple in Australia and New Zealand, where the company lost an estimated 20 job spots weeks before.
Some of the veteran employees, such as team members who had 20 to 30 years working at the company, were affected by the layoffs. An agency that was among the most affected was the US government sales team that deals with the Defence Department and the Justice Department. The same division was already grappling with budget constraints which were occasioned by a long-term government shutdown and a wide-ranging cost-cutting directive.
A rare move for Apple
Apple does not normally resort to massive layoffs and has in the past termed job cuts as a last resort. In cases where they have to be reduced, the firm usually designs them in such a manner that they do not initiate the mandatory WARN notices. Nevertheless, Apple has reduced the number of people in recent times as a result of cancelling projects and economic requirements, such as the shutdown of its self-driving car division, as well as the downsizing of certain AI and services units.
Although the reduction that Apple makes is still small compared to the industry counterparts, more widespread layoffs are being experienced in the technology sector. Amazon recently reported that it intends to lay off over 14,000 employees, and Meta has laid off a number of hundreds of employees in its AI department. The new restructuring has left employees at Apple who have been victimised by the recent changes until January 20, and they must secure new positions within the company before severance packages are awarded to them.