Apple is set to lay off over 600 employees in the Bay Area, marking the tech giant’s first major wave of post-pandemic job cuts, following reports of shelving a self-driving car initiative.
The company informed 614 employees across multiple offices in the state about the layoffs March 28, with the job terminations set to take effect on May 27, according to reports submitted to regional authorities.
Employees were laid off from eight offices in Santa Clara, as indicated by filings under the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN). The company did not indicate which departments or projects the affected employees were associated with.
According to a recent regulatory filing, Apple reported approximately 161,000 full-time equivalent employees.
The Cupertino-based tech giant had notably refrained from workforce reductions, unlike many other tech companies that downsized over the past two years.
Over 57,700 employees have been laid off across 235 tech companies in 2024 alone as of April 5, according to layoffs.fyi, a platform that tracks job cuts in the tech industry.
Leading the wave of job cuts were prominent companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, each having announced at least 10,000 layoffs since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this week, Amazon revealed a new round of layoffs affecting its cloud computing division, AWS. In recent months, Electronic Arts, a video game maker, announced a workforce reduction of approximately 5 percent. Sony also disclosed plans to cut about 900 jobs in its PlayStation division.
Additionally, Cisco Systems unveiled intentions to lay off over 4,000 employees, while social media company Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, announced a 10 percent reduction in its global workforce.
