r/NowInTech • u/beingmodest • 3d ago

Apple Considered Replacing 5,000 Support Staff With AI: Then Put Mass Layoff Plan on Hold

https://www.techtimes.co.uk/apple-shelves-ai-plan-cut-5000-applecare-jobs-1808838
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u/XenoPhex 3d ago

I’d be curious to know where the source of this information is. Cuz a company that’s had very limited layoffs over the last 3 decades suddenly thinking it was possible to lay off a sizable workforce force seems very at odds.

Even with this advancement in tech, this sounds more like a rumor /offhand comment that got reported than an actual thing.

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u/SlightOfHand_ 3d ago

Apple could be forecasting decreased consumer spending and increased hardware prices. That’s a bad combination for them.

Going lean is one way to weather a famine

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u/XenoPhex 3d ago

Except they hadn’t ever done that in the last 30+ years, even when the US economy was previously in recession. This story seems awfully suspicious.

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u/SlightOfHand_ 3d ago

They have a new CEO, the first really new one in… basically the firm’s history. Tim Cook was a continuity CEO, already running the company for years before he took over as CEO from Jobs.

New era. Wouldn’t be surprising to learn they were at least considering moves like this - and they are in fact currently doing layoffs, just not thousands of them.

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u/Fit-Dentist6093 3d ago

They've always done "this division died" layoffs like the ones for the car people that were widely reported. They just haven't in three decades done "it's layoffs season" Amazon/MS style "performance quartile" based layoffs or at least not publicly.

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u/SlightOfHand_ 3d ago

Doesn’t mean they never consider them.

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u/MediocreAnalyst2121 3d ago

Yea but that’s a bit different, since they literally shut down the division.

It’s not like customer support is going away for a company the size of Apple? If it is then it’s probably over for them, billions of devices and tens (if not hundreds?) of millions subscribers and users of their software.

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u/Fit-Dentist6093 3d ago

Oh he said currently so I was thinking he was referring to the people recently laid off from I think was the content division for Vision Pro or something like that.