Apple lays off more than 600 workers in California in its first major round of post-COVID cuts

Apple is laying off more than 600 workers in California, marking the company’s first big wave of post-pandemic job cuts amid a broader wave of tech industry consolidation.

The iPhone maker notified 614 workers in multiple offices on March 28 that they were losing their jobs, with the layoffs becoming effective on May 27, according to reports to regional authorities.

The workers were cut from eight offices in Santa Clara, according to the filings under the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, also known as WARN. But it’s not clear which departments or projects the employees were involved in.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment early on Friday.

The Cupertino, California, company had been a notable exception as other tech companies slashed their workforces over the past two years.

There was a massive surge in hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people spent more time and money online, and Big Tech companies are still larger than they were before the pandemic.

Still, as growth slows, companies are focusing on cutting costs.

In a recent regulatory filing, Apple said it had about 161,000 full-time equivalent employees.

Amazon announced earlier this week a fresh round of layoffs, this time at its cloud computing business AWS.

In recent months, video game maker Electronic Arts said it’s cutting about 5 per cent of its workforce, Sony said its axing about 900 jobs in its PlayStation division, Cisco Systems revealed plans to lay off more than 4,000 workers, and social media company Snap, owner of Snapchat, announced it is slashing 10 per cent of its global workforce.