Tim Cook: Mass layoffs a 'last resort' and off the table for the moment

laytech said:
"Apple earned $94.8 billion in revenue in its second quarter of 2023, with earnings buttressed by iPhone sales beating the expectations of analysts and investors.

No need to lay off anyone with that amount of revenue.

It’s all about planning ahead and right sizing their workforce size and skill mix to match their future and sustaining focused business objectives and anticipated customer demand. Apple is always adjusting their workforce in a selective manner to meet their business needs and demand. There is always some level of hiring and firing going on to fine tune the investment and cost equation.

The emphasis that cannot be overlooked here is on “mass” layoffs, which mean that the controlled, closed loop feedback mechanisms for establishing the right size workforce no longer apply and the company must take more drastic measures that are more along the lines of “damage control” to avoid crashing the company, at least in the eyes of the stock market and investors.

Apple will very likely continue to reduce their workforce size through attrition, reduced hiring, and selective layoffs in certain parts of their business. Apple has the luxury, from a Wall Street perspective, of not having a large part of their production and manufacturing capacity under their direct control. Responding to reduced product demand and cutting back on capacity in these areas isn’t viewed as Apple undergoing mass layoffs because the people doing that part of the work aren’t Apple employees. 

The most likely, but still sub-massive, scale layoffs at Apple will likely take the form of existing, and especially underperforming, product investments being cut back or cancelled and future product investments, most of which we know nothing about, being postponed or even abandoned. Apple will have layoffs, perhaps some substantial ones, but the ones that are more obviously “massive” ones tied to reductions in required capacity due to the falloff in demand are largely hidden from public perception.