Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and other tech companies have taken their own steps in recent weeks to rein in budgets and decelerate hiring. Microsoft Corp., Tesla Inc. and Meta have gone as far as to cut jobs—something Apple hasn’t historically done.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, allocates a certain amount of money to each major division annually for spending on research and development, resources and hiring. For 2023, it’s giving select teams a lower-than-expected budget.
For some groups, the company won’t increase headcount in 2023, whereas it might normally hire 5% to 10% more employees in a given year. It also plans to not fill roles of departing employees for some groups.
A spokesperson for the technology giant declined to comment.
Over the last few years, Apple has invested heavily in research and development, hired aggressively from its competition and launched several new products. But it’s also confronted supply-chain challenges, including the shutdown of production in China in recent months. Apple warned in April that the problems would cost it as much as $8 billion in the latest quarter.
Analysts expect Apple to report third-quarter revenue of about $83 billion, slightly above the year-earlier period, when it releases results on July 28.
During the last earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said Apple was “seeing inflation” and that the impact was evident in its gross margin and operating expenses. The company also cited a continued negative impact from COVID-19 and rising freight costs. It declined to provide specific revenue guidance.
