Apple has laid off around 100 workers from its digital services group, marking a rare instance of job cuts for the company.
The layoffs are believed to have been part of a strategic shift in priorities for Apple, and were announced yesterday to affected employees, according to sources familiar with the matter (via Bloomberg).
Apple’s redundancies impacted teams within SVP Eddy Cue’s services division, including some engineering roles, with the most significant cuts occurring across Apple Books workers.
Apple lays off employees
Other teams also saw some layoffs, including Apple News, although the app remains a key part of the company’s strategy and forms part of the top-tier Apple One Premier subscription – there is also a free version of the service available with less content.
Despite the changes, Apple Books is still expected to receive updates and new features, suggesting that Apple has not turned its back on the service.
More broadly, and under the leadership of CEO Tim Cook, Apple has been driving its services revenue, which now stands at more than one-fifth (22%) of the entire company’s income, up from less than one-tenth a decade ago. Services brought in $24.2 billion in revenue in the company’s most recent quarter.
While layoffs are typically rare at Apple, 2024 has already seen four rounds of job cuts. Earlier this year, Apple laid off hundreds across its self-driving car project and reduced its microLED display efforts.
TechRadar Pro has asked Apple to comment on the latest layoffs, but we did not immediately receive a response.
Nevertheless, the company’s workers have been relatively fortunate compared with those employed by other tech giants – Google started the year by laying off around 1,000 workers, and has made seven more similar announcements in the months that have followed (accoridng to layoffs.fyi).
