The UK also has universal healthcare and a better social safety net (and yes, the NHS is struggling right now, it’s still better than what most retail employees in the US can access affordably)
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Retail Employees Getting Smaller Raises of Approximately 4% in 2023
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And most UK employers are required to provide their empolyees with 28 days (5.6 work weeks) of paid annual leave.
In America, people live to work. In other parts of the world, people work so they can live.
No doubt many here complaining about 4% raises would instead be on-board with Apple having massive layoffs like google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Meta/Facebook, PayPal, Roku, Oracle, Amazon, T-Mobile, Cisco, DoorDash, Accenture, Zoom, Twitter, IBM, Salesforce, SAP, etc.
There's a reason Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world. And also one of the best managed companies.
Hat-tip to TC and other Apple executives keeping their 160,000+ employees employed while other companies cast them to the wind as mere expendables.
There's a reason Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world. And also one of the best managed companies.
Hat-tip to TC and other Apple executives keeping their 160,000+ employees employed while other companies cast them to the wind as mere expendables.
Stock buybacks are just tax efficient dividends. An extreme distaste for stock buybacks is a really good indicator of financial illiteracy (not personal finance, but corporate finance).
I'll help you conceptualize: companies remit profits to the people/entities that own them. That is why they exist. Buybacks are just a cash payment from the company to investors who desire cash (investors who decide to sell their shares in the market). Say you own 10% of Apple and Apple is worth $100. Your value is $10. If Apple decides to use $10 of cash to buy back its stock and you decide not to sell you will still own around 11% but of a company that now has $10 less cash, making its value approximately $90. Your ownership, by not selling, effectively increases but of a company that has less cash than it would have had had it not done the buyback. This is similar to a dividend. If you think buybacks are stock manipulation then you think dividends are and if you think dividends are then you quite literally misunderstand the purpose of a company or what stock manipulation is.
Last edited:
Then it’s not really even a raise, it’s just not a pay decrease. Apple can and certainly should pay more.
Why would Apple pay above market for their employees? If their employees are more valuable than Apple's pay would indicate then they will leave and Apple will be negatively impacted. If they leave (which many do) and Apple is not marginally negatively impacted then they weren't worth more than they were being paid.
We are not owed anything. We're all on a floating rock trying to make the best situation for ourselves. Make yourself valuable if you think you're being undervalued.
Bear in mind that most of those companies have higher than pre-pandemic headcounts, they overhired during the pandemic (and in many cases in the tech industry deliberately hired people without having work for them to do just to keep them from competitors). Apple never went on that hiring spree to begin with. The actual headcount has grown more at many of those companies.
For example:
Google had 119,000 employees in 2019
Apple had 137,000 employees in 2019
Now Google has a whopping 174,000 employees, Apple has 170,000.
Google, *after layoffs* still increased their headcount substantially more, both in sheer numbers and in percentage, than Apple did compared to pre-pandemic
The huge layoffs were a correction, not a cratering of job prospects that Apple and folks like you can use to justify paltry raises
Oh true because even though it's equal to the rate of inflation, prices will go up over the next year. So it is like a pay cut.
Although I do think deflation is possible in 2024, just wait until student loan payments resume.
The fed will absolutely not let deflation happen if they can avoid it, it would be a disaster for federal, state, and municipal debt service for one thing, I doubt itll happen
Apple didn't raise U.S. iPhone prices during the pandemic either yet provided greater pay increases for retail employees during that time.
I’m not an Apple retail employee, but it doesn’t take a genius (no pun intended) to see that the continuous push to screw over workers at every turn is bad for society as a whole.
It is easy to look a raise of 2%-5% and say that it’s not high enough, but it’s a irrelevant number overall when we do not have any visibility into whether or not Apple pays it’s retail employees a living wage. All it telling us is that overall Apple is repeating its “lackluster year playbook” again…. Hello 2008.
What’s more important to me is whether or not they actually pay enough. I prefer to buy only from companies that do.
It would be nice if we had visibility into, on a company by company basis, data that provides the “percentage rate in which the employed have a job that offers a living wage, when contrasted with the local consumer price index, based on a schedule of working no more than 40 hours of per week.”
Back in the 2000s/early 2010s, I remember the salaries would easily provide a living wage for full time employees in the midwestern markets I worked in. Not so easily on the coasts.
What’s more important to me is whether or not they actually pay enough. I prefer to buy only from companies that do.
It would be nice if we had visibility into, on a company by company basis, data that provides the “percentage rate in which the employed have a job that offers a living wage, when contrasted with the local consumer price index, based on a schedule of working no more than 40 hours of per week.”
Back in the 2000s/early 2010s, I remember the salaries would easily provide a living wage for full time employees in the midwestern markets I worked in. Not so easily on the coasts.
"Because they provide significant value for a massively valuable company..."
This is totally fair and this massively valuable company should recognize and compensate accordingly.
"...because people deserve living wages..."
People deserve what they and their value proposition provide.
"...because cost of living makes that $60k not actually all that much money in at least most urban areas in the us."
The fabulous thing about the US is the freedom to up and move and find a new job and make life decisions for yourself. There are countless places to reside of varying costs of living and all sorts of jobs and careers - none of which include shackles!
Paying market value is not screwing over workers. Why should anyone be entitled to more than what anyone else would willingly pay?
This is utter nonsense that’s trotted out to end the discussion any time someone dares to even suggest that a company might have made a decision that doesn’t provide immediate financial benefit to itself.
Can we please stop repeating it?
It’s only the market value because workers rights have already been eroded away for decades. People deserve more but they don’t have to power or protections necessary to get it.
Market value doesn't take the needs of workers into account unless they can collectively bargain.
Edit: Actually, now that I think about it a little more, this discussion here is also part of market dynamics. But, collective bargaining is still the best way to push back against stagnating wages.
Exactly what I said. 15+85. Last time I checked that’s not “hundreds”.Looks like near 100M to me. When I calculate my yearly earnings (as well as how the IRS calculates it), stock and base all count. So he is making near 9 digits...
Apple CEO Tim Cook to Take More Than 40% Pay Cut
Apple CEO Tim Cook will take a more than 40% pay cut this year from a year earlier as the company adjusts how it calculates his compensationwww.usnews.com
They should not complain at least it’s higher than inflation
Factoring in inflation, 4% is not a raise, you exploitative corporate scumbag, Tim Cook.
Apple Stock (in turn execs), up 40% YTD. Apple employees, here is 4% for ya! Thanks for all your hard work in making us money suckers!!!