Not only would the company’s external image be tarnished, but morale within could take a serious hit…

We’ve heard Apple has slowed hiring and delayed bonuses in several divisions. Still, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in this week’s Power On newsletter that if Apple continues to cut jobs, it could damage itself externally and internally, even in a slowing (or worse, recessionary and worsening) economy.

In principle, Apple does not want to continue with the layoffs because Tim Cook, the company’s CEO, has decided to cut his salary. Last year, Cook was paid $99.4 million, but in 2023 that could be cut by 40% to $49 million. (That’s not a 40% cut because it’s less than half… we don’t understand that!) During Apple’s latest financial earnings report, Cook said that further cuts should only be considered a last resort. (Again, it sounds like typical PR-speak because management takes home so much money in a year that a lower-level employee can’t make it in a lifetime!)

Meanwhile, Apple has made $30 billion in profits, is sitting on $165 billion, and is much more profitable than other tech giants. Nor are the cuts expected to continue because Apple’s talented employees are working on the company’s next-generation products, including the rumored AR headset: “Apple’s top executives are seen as some of the most tactical minds in the industry. Layoffs would either signal that they’d made a strategic blunder or that the global economy was in worse shape than people feared. It could send ripples through different industries and economies,” Gurman wrote.

With the layoffs, new products would delay significantly. One ex-Apple engineer says there is a lot of pressure on the company to eventually release the AR headset he worked on at Apple, despite it potentially not selling very well. Apple is under pressure to stay at the forefront of the market but to do that, it needs to motivate its employees and pay them a decent wage. Otherwise, the company risks heavy losses, and shareholders would not look kindly on that…

Source: WCCFTech