Amid a backdrop of hiring freezes and layoffs across the technology industry, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook said Monday that the smartphone giant was bringing on new employees in some roles even as it takes a more restrained approach to overall hiring.
“What we’re doing as a consequence of being in this period is we’re being very deliberate on our hiring,” he told CBS News in an interview. “That means we’re continuing to hire, but not everywhere in the company.”
Cook added that Apple
AAPL,
executives “believe strongly in investing for the long term” and that they “don’t believe you can save your way to prosperity.”
His comments come on the heels of Meta Platforms Inc.’s
META,
announcement last Wednesday that it would lay off more than 11,000 employees as it strives to “become a leaner and more efficient company.” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the Facebook parent company, added in that announcement that Meta would be extending a hiring freeze through the first quarter of next year.
Other tech companies including Snap Inc.
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Shopify Inc.
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and Peloton Interactive Inc.
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have also announced layoffs in recent months. Amazon.com Inc.
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announced in early November that it would put a “pause on new incremental hires in our corporate workforce” that is expected to last a few months.
Cook also described Apple’s philosophy on employees returning to the office, commenting that the nature of the company means that people “have to hold [the] product” and “collaborate with one another.” With that in mind, he said he sees value in the serendipity of in-person interactions, although he noted that Apple employees aren’t in the office five days a week and that on Fridays, the company’s offices resemble a “ghost town.”
Shares of Apple are down 1% in Monday morning trading. They’ve lost 17% so far this year, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
has fallen 7%.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
