Apple Lays Off 600+ Employees After Canceling Car Project

[MacRumors]

Apple this week filed a required notice with the state of California, confirming plans to permanently lay off more than 600 employees. Under California law, employers must give employees and state representatives a 60-day notice before a mass layoff event.

The employees listed are located in several Apple-occupied buildings around Santa Clara, California, which is close to Apple's Cupertino headquarters. Several of these locations were rumored to be associated with Apple Car development in the past, so it is likely that these layoffs are related to Apple's decision to stop work on the car project.

Apple officially ended development on the Apple Car in March. Approximately 2,000 employees working on the Apple Car were told that the project was winding down at that time, and Apple began the process of moving some of them to work on artificial intelligence under John Giannandrea and in other relevant departments.

Other employees were given 90 days to apply for open positions within the company, but Apple hired hardware engineers and car designers while working on the Apple Car, and these employees may not have had skills applicable to other projects.

Apple also recently ended development on in-house microLED displays, so some of the layoffs might also be related to the decision to discontinue that work.

Article Link: Apple Lays Off 600+ Employees After Canceling Car Project

 

[Think|Different]

Damnnnnn. That really blows.

 

[AlexStudios]

this is really... really disappointing.

 

[vegetassj4]

Couldn’t they have just released another dongle or polishing cloth to make up for the $$$?

 

[syklee26]

tough times for EV hardware engineers.

 

[Mac.Matt]

We are witnessing a repeat of Xerox and the like from the 1970s. Apple continues to develop and innovate, but is no longer able to go to market with new products. Even in the 90s Apple was trying many different things.

I want them to prove me wrong.

 

[Pezimak]

Apple are not doing good enough IMO, weekly outages across its services, and now laying off several hundred staff after failed projects. They need to try much harder and stick to what they know.

 

[ethanwa79]

600 people is a lot. And a 2000 person team. All for it to be scrapped?

With a team that large you’d think they would have really been able to create something amazing.

 

[DHagan4755]

I would love to see Apple put the rest of those teams to work on shoring up the rest of Apple's portfolio. It would be nice if all of the announced features for operating systems launch on time.

 

[tazinlwfl]

The only tech company (or company in general) that has this report tied to the actual lack of work because of a closed project, not “we laid off 15% of our workforce to increase profits and enact share buybacks”… and this type of thing is super rare for Apple. Can’t be too disappointed.

 

[moabal]

Courage... to layoff.

 

[Digital Skunk]

No job is safe it seems. Although, that's been the job market for decades now.

 

[jonnyb098]

They’ll get jobs very easily and probably got a decent severance. Having said that there are many other areas of Apple that could use some help….like Siri and iOS software. Both are buggy AF For years.

 

[EssModelsRule]

Tech employees are having a rough go at it lately. When a $100k job in any other industry pays $200k+ because "coding", something is bound to give. Price to end consumer matters.

 

[scrapesleon]

What were they expecting get paid to do nothing

 

[alexandr]

I wonder if they at least saw this coming. It seems they really haven't scratched the surface in all these years...

 

[DBZmusicboy01]

ANOTHER Tim Apple Win 😍

 

[JPack]

Remember when some forum folks scoffed at the Apple Car rumors?

Gurman and Kuo rumors are bunk! There is no car project.

Now, there really isn't.

 

[klasma]

And a 2000 person team. All for it to be scrapped?With a team that large you’d think they would have really been able to create something amazing.

It’s actually easier to innovate with smaller dedicated teams. 2000 employees is quite a big herd to be steered and managed.

 

[klasma]

No job is safe it seems. Although, that's been the job market for decades now.

The tech job market changed radically since 2022.

 

[JPack]

Apple is still working on a toy "car." 😁

Apple Exploring 'Mobile Robot' That 'Follows Users Around Their Homes'

Apple is exploring various "personal robotics" projects in an effort to create its "next big thing," according to Bloomberg's...

www.macrumors.com

 

[brofkand]

This is the first time in decades that I can recall hearing about an Apple mass layoff event.

 

[rgwebb]

This is the first time in decades that I can recall hearing about an Apple mass layoff event.

No solace for those getting laid off but at least it was due to Apple deciding to end a program they gave over a decade to get off the ground but decided on cutting their losses now. Many of these big tech layoffs have been due to loose hiring practices in the late 2010s that went into overdrive during the pandemic.

Apple got into the automobile space - at least in research and development - because there was a prevailing thought that revolutionary advancements in automation were around the corner. I think many in the tech industry - and financing side of tech - got swept up by charlatans who knew how to drum up investment in a speculation-friendly economic climate (low interest rates).

There has been a broad understanding that full-self driving isn't happening soon on any appreciable business time scale that matters to investors. Apple got into the space because they thought they could be a leader in an emerging product space but instead were just going to be making something that other luxury brands have a century advantage on them.

 

[newceoofapple]

I hope all of the people that are a part of the lay off are able to get jobs somewhere else. I think it is completely unacceptable that they couldn't find something for these people. So they can spend 10 Billion on R&D for a write down but let's screw over the people that did all the hard work??

And btw who wanted this project? Tim Cook.

It needs to be said, Tim Cook is not a good CEO for Apple. He is going to continue to drag them down.

The Apple train... Choo Choo All aboard... Next Stop- Lack of Innovation and then Planned Obsolescence.

Guess what we get soon? Another batch of Air Pods! Why? Let's confuse people even more with the ridiculous amount of options for Apple products!

Or better yet... An iPhone and iPad that barely has a new feature!

Who wants an Apple Watch that can't use the Oxygen Sensor because they ripped off a patent? How many patents is that now that they ripped off?

It is actually embarrassing at this point.

This whole marketing BS that Tim spews every time during at a product presentation "At Apple..." He has ZERO Vision.

I hope the world starts to see Apple for what they are: Arrogant/Greedy

The DOJ case should shed some more light for the world.

Here is a Tim Cook quote:

"Our goal has never been to make the most. It's always been to make the best. For us, the most important thing we can do is raise people up - that is, either by giving the ability to do things they could not otherwise do, allow them to create things they couldn't otherwise create."

Right Tim Cook! You really care about people. 🤢

 

[ipedro]

I suspect most if not all of them will either find jobs in the growing EV industry, moved or later hired back into in Apple's rapidly expanding AI department or in Apple's R&D in robotics which has a close cross-pollination of skills and technologies with automotive.