Apple is implementing a hiring slowdown as, for the first time in a while, the company appears vulnerable to rising inflation and interest rates, a surging US dollar and the threat of recession.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company isn’t going to extreme lengths like Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft by cutting jobs, but it does plan to keep its headcount flat for specific teams.
It also said it wouldn’t fill certain roles when employees leave.
The Cupertino-based tech giant hasn’t released a public statement on its hiring slowdown, but Gurman expects it will hint at its plans during a call with analysts on Thursday, 28 July 2022.
“The results themselves are expected to show a major deceleration in sales growth,” Gurman said.
Expectations are that Apple’s revenue would have grown around 2% year-on-year — its slowest growth since 2020.
Several factors hurt the company’s performance, including:
- Supply challenges caused by lockdowns in China and chip shortages;
- The company held the release of its newest MacBook Air until the fourth quarter after having revealed it in the third. This meant customers held off on purchasing a new Mac until it was available; and
- Economic uncertainty causes customers to hold onto their funds instead of buying new products.
Gurman noted that he expects the company to bounce back quite well, helped by a range of new products it is likely to release soon.
These products include four iPhone 14 models, new Apple watches, an updated Apple HomePod, and new Apple TV, to name a few.
Notably, Apple is expected to reveal a new version of its smartwatch — the Apple Watch Pro — aimed at extreme sports enthusiasts.
It will feature a more rugged design, a larger display, better battery life, and a body-temperature sensor.
“I’m told that the high-end model is going to be a good bit bigger than the standard Apple Watch—big enough that it might only appeal to a subset of customers,” Gurman said.
“The screen will be about 7% larger, and the device will have a fresh look—the first time the company has introduced a new Apple Watch design since 2018. It will be an evolution of the current rectangular shape, and not circular.”
