Apple Increasing Starting Pay for Hourly Workers to at Least $22 Per Hour

Apple today notified employees that it is increasing starting pay for hourly workers to a minimum of $22 per hour, and higher in certain markets, reports The Wall Street Journal. The move comes as the company seeks to deal with inflation, a tight labor market, and recent unionization efforts.

Apple Logo Cash Feature Blue
The new starting wage represents a 45% increase compared to 2018 and will most prominently affect retail workers. Salaried positions are also expected to see starting increases.

“Supporting and retaining the best team members in the world enables us to deliver the best, most innovative, products and services for our customers,” an Apple spokesman said in a statement. “This year as part of our annual performance review process, we’re increasing our overall compensation budget.”

Apple retail workers have started looking to unionize in a small number of stores, seeking higher pay and expanded benefits such as increased vacation time and improved retirement options.

Just today, Apple's head of retail Deirdre O'Brien sent a video message to retail store employees to address those efforts, arguing that while it is workers' right join a union, there could be downsides for workers if they choose to do so.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Top Rated Comments

exoticSpice Avatar
25 months ago
Apple feeling the union heat! good.
Score: 50 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
25 months ago
??‍ It's about time. Good move by Apple. I’m sure Apple retail employees will be happy. Apple needs to work on the benefit packages too.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macar00n Avatar
25 months ago
Bravo, Apple. If customers can't afford higher prices due to this, that is tough for the customers, but doesn't mean we should pay workers below a living wage. If you can't afford an iPhone after this, that's nothing compared to retail workers that work full time and still can't afford to live. This will put positive pressure on other companies.

The cynic in me knows this is primarily to avoid unionization, but this will pressure other companies to keep up with wages nevertheless.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Justin Cymbal Avatar
25 months ago
I’m glad that Apple is doing this

I applied to work at the Apple Store about 10 years ago but didn’t get hired at that time

I would love to try to reapply, especially now that the starting pay is $22/hour
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JPack Avatar
25 months ago
Too late. Unionization will still likely happen.

If you know anything about labor relations, unionization happens overwhelming because of inequality, perceived or otherwise. A simple pay increase won't fix arbitrary decisions on promotions, vacation scheduling, overtime opportunities, and overall career advancement in the organization.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
25 months ago

Don’t be too quick to pat Timmy on the back. This will simply be passed down to us through an increase in cost for upcoming devices.
Oh yeah, lol the prices of iPhones will be going up. It's the consumers that end up paying in the end. But Apple made too much money selling that $19 Apple polishing cloth.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
apple id account

Apple ID Accounts Logging Out Users and Requiring Password Reset

Saturday April 27, 2024 12:41 am PDT by
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
macbook pro purple february

Best Buy Introduces Record Low Prices on Apple's M3 MacBook Pro for Members

Thursday April 25, 2024 7:41 am PDT by
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
macos sonoma feature purple green

Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over

Friday April 26, 2024 6:34 am PDT by
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...