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Apple has become the latest US tech giant to reduce its workforce, laying off dozens of employees as part of cutbacks that will primarily impact employees in its services division.
The firm has started to notify employees in its Books and News sectors of the job cuts, indicating that it will not be a major focus for the company going forward. It is reported to only impact about 100 jobs, small by comparison with other tech companies whose redundancies have numbered in the thousands.
Layoffs are relatively rare at Apple, though the company has made at least four rounds of reductions in 2024. Earlier this year, it laid off hundreds of workers when it closed its self-driving car project and pared back its microLED display efforts.
It has been reported that employees were given 60 days to find another job within Apple before being terminated. Some of the employees worked across multiple teams, so other areas were impacted as well.
The move signals a continued strategic shift. In recent years invested billions in its services division, which includes Apple TV, Apple Music and Apple News. Apple Books, launched in 2010, has not become a market leader in a sector dominated by Kindle.
Meanwhile, the company continues to face scrutiny of its competitive practices, with the Department of Justice earlier this year filing a lawsuit against it over what the government alleges to be an illegal monopoly over the smartphone market.
The case alleges that Apple has used its locked-down iPhone ecosystem to build a monopoly.
The DOJ alleges that Apple blocks certain apps, suppresses mobile cloud streaming services, blocks cross-platform messaging apps, limits third-party digital wallets, and even limits third-party smartwatches. The DOJ has sued Apple for antitrust violations three times in the past 14 years.
