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Apple Retail Stores Seeing Significant Layoffs of Recent Hires?

chrmjenkins said:
Tell that to Australia. They seem to be unable to grasp the concept and suffer from high employment and high wages.
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Small population, highly industrialized country. Apples and oranges economically to the US. I could get into the detailed reasons, but that would be wayyy off topic from the purpose of this topic.

BTW Im from Perth but live in the US now.

In regards to Apple laying off people, its Retail. Its cut-throat and seasonal. You can't make a career out of selling computers even if it is for the richest company in the world. Wage and job stability is directly related to the individuals knowledge, Skill, and ability and how easy it is to find someone with those attributes. Doesn't take much to sell computers.
 
chrmjenkins said:
Well there you have it. If $90 games aren't a sign of a broken economy, I don't know what is.
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High employment is great -- no denying that -- but I'm just saying that the higher wages are counterbalanced by the higher cost of goods. Though I did read about AUS leading the way on "work-life" balance, so more kudos to them.
 
Whoa, the "Apple is doomed" crowd

I don't know what this story means and neither do you. Apple was staffing up until recently. Now they're pausing. You want employers not to treat you like dirt? You want a regulation in retail that says, hire somebody it's for 6 months at least. Apple is working in a sector where the pay is low, the hours long and very flexible. They do a pretty good job of how they treat employees, higher than average. That's part of why the service is great. This is a corporate mistake, no doubt. I'd bet that many will be rehired for the vacations.

Employers compete according to margins. The labor component is a huge part of it. I support the idea of having inspections of labor conditions at Apple in general, maybe every time there's a complaint and/or ever two or three years, as long as it is done with all employers in the retail sector. Okay? If you look at the company with the best profits of the entire retail sector and that only, and think that tells you anything, I don't know what to say. Successful firms do get hit both ways. Some people will say, "They mistreat their labor!" and the others say, "Why aren't they making more profit?" There's such little reporters in the story that people are just popping off with their pet peeves.
 
Long wait times

I just saw a tweet from a friend this past Friday where his Genius Bar appointment time came and went. 45 minutes later he still had not gotten to see anyone. I was curious how this could have happened, but now I no longer am. Everyone should expect slower, worse service at the Apple Stores as a result of these moves. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with the raises they just got. Apple has the $. It is choosing to decrease service. :(
 
ncaissie said:
It’s not about running a charity. It’s about paying your staff. If apple is making the profit it does to make it the #1 company in the world then there is no reason not to pay the employees what they disserve. I stood in line at the Apple store for 14 hours at the launch of the iPad2 and the staff were fantastic up-spirited and treated the people in line with great respect. I have never had that level of service in any retail store before. :apple:
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Do Apple retail employees disserve the fruits of success from good decisions from Jobs and Cook and good design by engineers and artists? All they do is sell products that they took no part in making. It's a job that almost anyone could do.

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HE15MAN said:
I dont see a reason to go in the store unless something breaks. Buy it all online, screw the chaos.
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Same. I actually buy from eBay now.
 
Many employees have left on the departure of Steve Jobs at corporate so it makes sense some would do that at retail as well. But I think the major factor in retail employee levels is a constant shift toward more automated and remote purchase schemes, and more concentration on after sale service at retail stores. That change taken to a new level would result in fewer needed employees.

Or maybe the recession under this presidential administration is sufficiently severe it really is hurting employment even at otherwise steady Apple. The employer requirements under The "Affordable care Act" are very stiff so that has to be a fairly large factor.

Rocketman
 
krye said:
Being such a huge Apple fanantic, people ask me all the time why I don't work for Apple. It's simple. When the honeymoon ends after 2 weeks, you realize it's just another sh**** retail job. People think working at the Apple Store is like Willy Wonkas or something. It's just retail. Dealing with the idiot public, crappy hours, and crappy pay. Sorry, but you can't pay a mortgage making $12 bucks an hour. What do these people expect? Working at the Apple Store is no different than working for Best Buy, Radio Shack or the Gap.
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I actually applied for a job at my local Apple Store. I love Apple's products and I gave so much of expertise on vintage products to current products to try and impress the interviewers, but it seemed to me at least that they were more interested in the individuals who had bags of confidence, despite having very limited knowledge on Apple products etc.

I'm not the most confident person in the world, but when I get talking about something I'm passionate about my nervousness goes away. I'm sure if I were doing it constantly on a daily basis I'd have gotten much better at it.

There was a lot individuals who applied for just the one position though.
 
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faroZ06 said:
Yes, that's because it's a low-skill job that most people can do. If I were to work with Apple, I'd at least aim to be a Genius. I can already be one with my current knowledge.
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Reading all the snarky remarks you make on this forum alone, you would be a poor fit to work at apple period.

It's not how much you know it's how you are able to pass that knowledge onto customers who have no knowledge.
 
This surprises me, considering how incredibly packed the stores are. Every single Apple Store I've been in (Dadeland, Lincoln Road, Aventura, both NYC stores) is so packed there's hardly room to walk around. How can they be laying people off?

This is just bizarre.
 
Anti-Lucifer said:
Reading all the snarky remarks you make on this forum alone, you would be a poor fit to work at apple period.

It's not how much you know it's how you are able to pass that knowledge onto customers who have no knowledge.
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What makes you think I wouldn't be able to pass knowledge onto customers? And the only jobs at Apple that involve passing knowledge onto customers are the phone-answerers and the retail store helpers. Even Genius Bar people mostly just fix problems.
 
tdtran1025 said:
It's not rocket science as much as it is economic science on seasonally adjusted work force. Full-time staffers are the minimal number required during the low season. Bring in part-timers for the anticipated increased workload, as long as full-timers are required to put in extra hours to help train part-timers. Pay full-timers more base salary and a small cut from the part-timers they are responsible for. When the peak is over, lay off the part-timers. They won't be hurt because they know this going in. What Apple is doing is mimicking US retail auto sales model [which] will bring in the most revenues for the company.
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tdtran1025 said:
For Apple to make it an excuse is inexcusable...Teach these kids bad habits from the beginning and they will be messed up for life. The company needs to go back to the drawing board to draft amicable labor policies. I suspect all this is the meeting of the minds of Jobs and Cook. One of them is dead now so there is no reason the other one can't change it, if he wants good people to become loyal fans also. C'mon Cook, your products gross the highest margin on this planet. Don't tell me you can't spare a few dollars to care for your own people.
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I'm confused. You just illustrated the correct business model for a company to maximize profits (which is basically the function of any business - honestly tell me you wouldn't become an entrepreneur so you can not make money) and then you defended it by saying "It's not rocket science as much as it is economic science on seasonally adjusted work force" and "When the peak is over, lay off the part-timers. They won't be hurt because they know this going in."

Unless you run a non-profit, this is how you run a business (and this is even true within some non-profits.)

I see the point you are trying to make with amicable labor policies, but you just explained why companies do what they do. If you have a better idea then please fill me in because that would be incredibly valuable information and I'll take that straight to my company!
 
Shrink said:
My experience is just the opposite...Genius appointments always on time, and less than 5 minutes for pick up devices left for repair. (Last repair was replacement of the Logic Board, which took about 5 hours from when I dropped it off.)

I don't for a moment question your bad experience, but I really think it depends on the store. My experience has been uniformly positive in all ways...I guess I'm lucky, my closest store is a well run store. :D
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Your absolutely right, it truly varies from store to store. The Apple Store near me has increased in popularity over the past few years to the point where you can barely walk around in it, its so crammed full of people. It also seems to be understaffed in comparison to the amount of customers, as getting somebody's attention to buy something or ask a question takes about 15 minutes. I know Apple is slowly going through and expanding/moving their stores to bigger locations, but they need to speed it up. Many of the original small stores are miserable nowadays 'cause there just isn't enough room. I've been to several of the bigger Apple stores and those have been a much better experience.
 
zorinlynx said:
This surprises me, considering how incredibly packed the stores are. Every single Apple Store I've been in (Dadeland, Lincoln Road, Aventura, both NYC stores) is so packed there's hardly room to walk around. How can they be laying people off?

This is just bizarre.
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This is a geographically independent issue. All Apple stores are not exactly the same in terms of its volume of customer traffic.

All five of your examples are from densely populated areas that are not exactly poverty stricken.
 
I think it's the high rents Apple pays combined with sluggish sales resulted in the layoffs. I think that was one of the reasons the last vp of retail left wasn't it? Something about rents and apples expansion made for relatively high sales expectation for each store to be profitable.
 
faroZ06 said:
What makes you think I wouldn't be able to pass knowledge onto customers? And the only jobs at Apple that involve passing knowledge onto customers are the phone-answerers and the retail store helpers. Even Genius Bar people mostly just fix problems.
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Come on now if you must ask then you definitely aren't a good fit at apple. I know your exact type and wouldn't come to you even if you gave away free screen protectors.
 
lilo777 said:
Except, with Apple profits, they definitely can. And I doubt this has anything to do with recently reported miniscule wage increases. It has everything to do with stagnating iDevice sales.
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27% Y-O-Y growth? Now that's some stagnation I can get behind. :rolleyes:
 
Sheza said:
Spot on.

This is the work of John Browett. Classic. He screwed over Dixons, PC World and Curry's and he will slowly ruin the Apple Retail Store experience too. I guarantee it.
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I had never heard of him before. I think you're spot on!
 
chrmjenkins said:
Tell that to Australia. They seem to be unable to grasp the concept and suffer from high employment and high wages.
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Seriously.... gee, if you pay people enough to make a living and maybe a little extra, they turn around and spend that money.

If you don't, they keep all they can cause they need it and you get less customers cause people don't have the money to spend on your crap.
 
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