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Apple Inc. reportedly has put a pause on hiring for positions that aren’t in research and development, joining a string of other tech companies that are scaling back their once-robust hiring initiatives due to a stormy economic climate.
Bloomberg News reported Thursday afternoon that Apple
AAPL,
recently enacted a hiring pause that applies to “many jobs” outside of R&D, including for roles focused on standard hardware or software engineering, as well as some corporate positions. The current pause mainly doesn’t apply to more futuristic or long-term endeavors, according to the report.
Apple’s hiring halt is “an escalation” of a prior goal from the company to cut budgets moving into 2023, Bloomberg said. It was reportedly enacted prior to the company’s last earnings report.
The smartphone giant didn’t immediately respond to a MarketWatch request for comment. Bloomberg cited a statement from Apple saying that the company is still hiring but that “given the current economic environment” it’s “taking a very deliberate approach in some parts of the business.”
The stock was down 0.7% in after-hours trading Thursday.
Fellow Big Tech player Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
told employees Wednesday that it was pausing “new incremental hires” across its workforce for several months.
“We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” Beth Galetti, the company’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, said in a memo that was posted to the company’s corporate site a day later.
Shares of Apple have held up better than those of its Big Tech peers on the year, falling 22% so far in 2022 as shares of Amazon have declined 46%.
Read: Apple valued at more than Amazon, Alphabet and Meta — combined
Smaller tech companies have taken more drastic actions, with Snap Inc.
SNAP,
Shopify Inc.
SHOP,
and Peloton Interactive Inc.
PTON,
among those that have announced layoffs in recent months. Privately held Stripe joined that camp Thursday as it announced its own plans to cut 14% of its staff.
Apple generally pleased investors with its latest earnings report, which showed a surge in Mac sales. Executives indicated that iPhone 14 demand was strong and that the company was working to supply enough phones to meet consumer interest. Since then, however, concerns have emerged about how the evolving COVID-19 situation in China would affect manufacturer Foxconn’s ability to produce devices.
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