Bloomberg: Apple Dismisses ~100 Contract Recruiters

Image: Olena Sergienko on Unsplash

16 AUGUST 2022 - Here’s a story that seems likely to be all over the pace today. Late Monday evening, Bloomberg (via MSN) ran a story saying Apple:

…laid off many of its contract-based recruiters in the past week, part of a push to rein in the tech giant’s hiring and spending, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

How many is “many”? In this case “about 100.” With an estimated headcount of 150,000 employees, 100 is ~0.07% of Apple’s workforce. Not many by comparison, though it is roughly 100-people who’s jobs were to hire other people.

Bloomberg sees the story as support for a previous piece it ran. The site points out “it first reported last month that [Apple] was decelerating hiring after years of staffing up, joining many tech companies in hitting the brakes.” At the same time, what the recently let go were reportedly told was that “the cuts were made due to changes in Apple’s current business needs.”

I’m not saying Bloomberg is wrong in its supposition regarding Apple’s reasons. There’s no way for me to know. At the same time, we don’t know a lot about the contractors let go. Were they hiring for a specific project or purpose for example? Bloomberg says they “were let go across many regions, including at Apple’s offices in Texas and Singapore.” Meanwhile, the piece indicates that not all of Apple’s contract-based recruiters were dismissed and none of its full-time recruiters were.

Assuming it’s true, the news is not nothing. It may not be as gloomy as Bloomberg indicates though, except for the roughly 100 contractors let go. Definitely troubling for them. “An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the decision,” according to the report. That sort of reads like confirmation of the staffing change… kind of…