Apple cuts jobs across its sales organisation in rare layoff

[LOS ANGELES] Apple has eliminated dozens of sales roles in a bid to streamline the way it offers products to businesses, schools and governments, marking a rare layoff for the iPhone maker.

Management notified the affected workers over the past couple of weeks, according to sources familiar with the matter. The cuts extended across the sales organisation, hitting some teams especially hard, though the company did not tell employees how many roles were involved.

The affected jobs included account managers serving major businesses, schools and government agencies, as well as the staff who operate Apple’s briefing centres for institutional meetings and product demonstrations for prospective major customers.

Apple confirmed on Monday (Nov 24) that it’s reshuffling the division, without giving specifics.

“To connect with even more customers, we are making some changes in our sales team that affect a small number of roles,” a spokesperson for the Cupertino, California-based company said. “We are continuing to hire and those employees can apply for new roles.”

It’s unusual for Apple to make cuts across an organisation, and the layoffs came as a surprise to those affected. The move is especially notable because revenue has been growing at the fastest clip in years. Apple is on track to generate sales of nearly US$140 billion in the December quarter, smashing its previous record.

The company is also planning a new low-end laptop for early next year that could give it a way to reach new business and educational customers.

The latest cuts followed the elimination of about 20 roles several weeks ago within Apple’s sales teams in Australia and New Zealand.

Employees who lost their jobs have until Jan 20 to secure another position within the company or they will be terminated with a severance package. Apple is advertising sales roles on its jobs website and told laid-off workers they could apply for them.

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Internally, the company is positioning the layoffs as part of an effort to streamline its sales workforce and eliminate overlapping responsibilities.

But some of the affected workers said that the move was driven by an effort to shift more sales to third-party resellers, which the company refers to as the channel. Some organisations prefer to work with those indirect sellers, they said, and the change helps Apple lower internal costs such as salaries.

The cuts included longtime managers and, in some cases, employees who have been with Apple for 20 or 30 years. One major target of the layoffs: a government sales team that works with agencies including the US Defense Department and Justice Department.

That team had already been facing tough conditions after the 43-day US government shutdown and cutbacks imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, which has attempted to slash spending.

Apple’s sales group reports directly to chief executive officer Tim Cook and is overseen by Mike Fenger, a long-tenured vice-president. Vivek Thakkar, a Fenger deputy, took on expanded responsibilities earlier this year and now oversees all enterprise and education sales.

Apple relies less on layoffs than many of its tech peers, with Cook saying previously that the move is a “last resort”. But the company has made cuts from time to time. When Apple eliminates jobs, it typically targets them in a way that avoids triggering the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications, or Warn notices, that are required by US labour law.

In 2024, Apple cut an unusually large number of employees due to product cancellations and a shaky economy. That included workers on its long-running – and now shuttered – self-driving car project and an effort to develop in-house screens for its devices. Some AI-related teams and parts of the services division were also affected.

Elsewhere in the technology world, layoffs remain more widespread. Earlier this month, Amazon.com said that it would cut more than 14,000 employees, while Meta Platforms recently culled several hundred roles in its AI organisation. BLOOMBERG