Apple Joins Tech Giants Google, Microsoft, Amazon In Spree To Freeze Hiring Amid Recession Fears

California: Apple Inc. joined latest major tech companies to scale back hiring and spending growth in some areas of its business due to worries about the current economic climate, marking the latest Silicon Valley company to recalibrate its hiring plans, a report in Bloomberg said. This comes after at least three other tech majors, including Google, Microsoft and Amazon put a freeze on their hiring and even laid off employees while also deciding not to make new investments, to cut costs ahead of the recession.Also Read – India Aims to Make Google, Facebook, Other Big Tech Giants Pay for Using Content from News Publishers

As per the report by Bloomberg, the iPhone maker, one of the largest companies of the world, wants to put a cap on expenditures and job growth at some of its sectors but has not taken up a companywide policy. This cautious stance displayed by Apple mimics the approach taken by its tech peers including, Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp., which, as mentioned above, have taken measures to cut costs. Also Read – Apple Brings Music Sessions With Live Performances in Spatial Audio

For now, most of the biggest tech companies aren’t talking about eliminating jobs, just reducing the rate of hiring. And overall US job growth hasn’t stalled. Payrolls increased 372,000 in June, beating the 265,000 estimate, with manufacturing jobs helping bolster the numbers. Also Read – Will Donate All My Wealth, Drop Off From World’s Richest List: Bill Gates

The US added 25,000 information jobs in June, putting that category 105,000 higher than just before the pandemic.

But some tech companies are going as far as cutting jobs. That includes Microsoft, which said last week that it was eliminating some positions as part of a reorganization.

The reduction affects less than 1% of its 180,000-person workforce, and Microsoft still expects to end the year with increased headcount. But it follows a move in May to slow hiring at the Windows, Office and Teams divisions “as Microsoft gets ready for the new fiscal year.”

Last month, Tesla Inc. laid off hundreds of workers and shuttered a California facility devoted to its Autopilot self-driving technology, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said earlier that layoffs would be necessary in an increasingly shaky economic environment. He clarified in a subsequent interview with Bloomberg that about 10% of salaried employees would lose their jobs over the next three months, though the overall headcount could be higher in a year.

Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told staff that the company planned to slow hiring for the remainder of 2022 — a rare move for the internet giant, which typically adds tens of thousands of employees every year. Google will be focusing its hiring on technical and “other critical roles” through this year and the next

Amazon staffed up during the pandemic so it could handle a surge in e-commerce spending. That’s now left it overstaffed in its warehouses, but the company has said it’s working through that problem with attrition. In some cases, Amazon is subleasing warehouse space and has paused development of facilities meant for office workers, saying it needs more time to determine how much space employees will require for hybrid work.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. has cut spending and slowed hiring for some senior-level positions. In April, the company announced plans to slash expenses by $3 billion this year. The idea is to refocus Meta’s product teams on core priorities, like the metaverse and its TikTok clone, Reels.