Apple Lays Off 600+ Employees After Canceling Car Project - MacRumors
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Apple Lays Off 600+ Employees After Canceling Car Project

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Apple this week filed a required notice with the state of California, confirming plans to permanently lay off more than 600 employees. Under California law, employers must give employees and state representatives a 60-day notice before a mass layoff event.

Apple car wheel icon feature yellow
The employees listed are located in several Apple-occupied buildings around Santa Clara, California, which is close to Apple's Cupertino headquarters. Several of these locations were rumored to be associated with Apple Car development in the past, so it is likely that these layoffs are related to Apple's decision to stop work on the car project.

Apple officially ended development on the Apple Car in March. Approximately 2,000 employees working on the Apple Car were told that the project was winding down at that time, and Apple began the process of moving some of them to work on artificial intelligence under John Giannandrea and in other relevant departments.

Other employees were given 90 days to apply for open positions within the company, but Apple hired hardware engineers and car designers while working on the Apple Car, and these employees may not have had skills applicable to other projects.

Apple also recently ended development on in-house microLED displays, so some of the layoffs might also be related to the decision to discontinue that work.

Top Rated Comments

vegetassj4 Avatar
vegetassj4
27 months ago
Couldn’t they have just released another dongle or polishing cloth to make up for the $$$?
Score: 47 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mac.Matt Avatar
Mac.Matt
27 months ago
We are witnessing a repeat of Xerox and the like from the 1970s. Apple continues to develop and innovate, but is no longer able to go to market with new products. Even in the 90s Apple was trying many different things.

I want them to prove me wrong.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tazinlwfl Avatar
tazinlwfl
27 months ago
The only tech company (or company in general) that has this report tied to the actual lack of work because of a closed project, not “we laid off 15% of our workforce to increase profits and enact share buybacks”… and this type of thing is super rare for Apple. Can’t be too disappointed.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
E
ethanwa79
27 months ago
600 people is a lot. And a 2000 person team. All for it to be scrapped?

With a team that large you’d think they would have really been able to create something amazing.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
R
rgwebb
27 months ago

This is the first time in decades that I can recall hearing about an Apple mass layoff event.
No solace for those getting laid off but at least it was due to Apple deciding to end a program they gave over a decade to get off the ground but decided on cutting their losses now. Many of these big tech layoffs have been due to loose hiring practices in the late 2010s that went into overdrive during the pandemic.

Apple got into the automobile space - at least in research and development - because there was a prevailing thought that revolutionary advancements in automation were around the corner. I think many in the tech industry - and financing side of tech - got swept up by charlatans who knew how to drum up investment in a speculation-friendly economic climate (low interest rates).

There has been a broad understanding that full-self driving isn't happening soon on any appreciable business time scale that matters to investors. Apple got into the space because they thought they could be a leader in an emerging product space but instead were just going to be making something that other luxury brands have a century advantage on them.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
A
AlexStudios
27 months ago
this is really... really disappointing.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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