http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20926179/legion-fans-apple-retail-jobs-prove-letdown-pay
(quoted in entirety)
For legion of fans, Apple retail jobs prove a letdown
By David Segal
New York Times
Last year, during his best three-month stretch, Jordan Golson sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the Apple Store in Salem, N.H. It was a performance that might have called for a bottle of Champagne -- if that were a luxury Golson could have afforded.
"I was earning $11.25 an hour," he said. "Part of me was thinking, 'This is great. I'm an Apple fan, the store is doing really well.' But when you look at the amount of money the company is making, and then you look at your paycheck, it's kind of tough."
America's love affair with the smartphone has helped create tens of thousands of jobs at places like Best Buy and Verizon Wireless and will this year pump billions into the economy.
Within this world, the Apple Store is the undisputed king, a retail phenomenon renowned for impeccable design, deft service and spectacular revenues. Last year, Apple's 327 global stores took in more money per square foot than any other U.S. retailer -- wireless or otherwise -- and almost double that of Tiffany, which was No. 2 on the list, according to the research firm RetailSails.
But most of Apple's employees enjoyed little of that wealth. While consumers tend to think of Apple's headquarters in Cupertino as the company's heart and soul, a majority of its workers in the United States are not engineers or executives with hefty salaries and bonuses but rather hourly wage earners selling iPhones and MacBooks.
About 30,000 of the 43,000 Apple employees in this country work in Apple Stores, as members of the service economy, and many of them earn about $25,000 a year. They work inside the world's fastest growing industry, for the most valuable company, run by one of the country's most richly compensated chief executives, Tim Cook. Last year, he received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period, that at today's share price would be worth more than $570 million.
And though Apple is unparalleled as a retailer, when it comes to its lowliest workers, the company is a reflection of the technology industry as a whole.
Much of the debate about U.S. unemployment has focused on why companies have moved factories overseas, but only 8 percent of the U.S. work force is in manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job growth has for decades been led by service-related work.
And as the service sector has grown, the definition of a career has been reframed for millions of U.S. workers.
By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above-average pay -- well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount.
Even Apple, it seems, has recently decided it needs to pay its workers more. Last week, four months after The New York Times first began inquiring about the wages of its store employees, the company started to inform some staff members that they would receive substantial raises.
Apple declined requests for interviews for this article. Instead, the company issued a statement: "Thousands of incredibly talented professionals work behind the Genius Bar and deliver the best customer service in the world. The annual retention rate for Geniuses is almost 90%, which is unheard-of in the retail industry, and shows how passionate they are about their customers and their careers at Apple."