Apple's Employee Count Grew This Year Despite Smaller-Scale Layoffs

Apple's employee count grew in 2024, despite reports that the company had at least four incidents of smaller-scale layoffs this year.

imac video apple feature
As of late September, Apple had approximately 164,000 full-time employees worldwide, the company disclosed in a filing last week. That's up from the 161,000 full-time employees that Apple reported a year ago. These figures include corporate employees, such as software engineers, and retail employees at its stores.

Apple now has as many employees as it did in 2022, following a slight decrease last year.

Apple's full-time employee counts by year, per the company's filings:

  • 2024: 164,000
  • 2023: 161,000
  • 2022: 164,000
  • 2021: 154,000
  • 2020: 147,000
  • 2019: 137,000
  • 2018: 132,000

Apple laid off more than 600 employees this year after canceling its long-running electric vehicle project, according to a notice the company filed in California. The company also relocated a Siri evaluation team from San Diego, California to Austin, Texas, and some on the 120-person team who were not willing to make the long-distance move were laid off.

Apple also cut around 100 jobs across its Apple Books and Apple News teams this year, and laid off some employees after abandoning its plan to develop in-house Apple Watch displays with micro-LED technology, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

While some other tech companies like Google and Microsoft have laid off tens of thousands of employees over the past two years, Apple has managed to avoid larger-scale layoffs in that time. With its employee count once again at an all-time high, and its quarterly revenues in record territory again, Apple is heading into 2025 on a good note.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

10 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Thursday October 31, 2024 9:42 am PDT by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.2 in December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. There are a handful of new non-AI related feature controls incoming as well. ...
best early black friday deals

The Best Early Black Friday Apple Deals

Friday November 1, 2024 8:21 am PDT by
We're officially in the month of Black Friday, which will take place on Friday, November 29 in 2024. As always, this will be the best time of the year to shop for great deals, including popular Apple products like AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment,...
M4 Pro on Blue

M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat

Thursday October 31, 2024 7:06 pm PDT by
The first Geekbench 6 benchmark results for the M4 Pro chip surfaced today. Impressively, the results that are available so far show that the highest-end M4 Pro chip is faster than the highest-end M2 Ultra chip in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance. Here is a comparison of the results: Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results) Mac Studio...
Apple iPhone SE 4 5G Modem 1

iPhone SE 4 First to Get Apple-Designed 5G Modem, iPhone 17 Pro to Add Custom Wi-Fi 7 Chip

Friday November 1, 2024 4:04 am PDT by
The iPhone SE 4 that's set to come out early next year is expected to debut Apple's first in-house 5G modem, according to Jeff Pu, an analyst who covers companies within Apple's supply chain. In a research note this week with Hong Kong-based investment firm Haitong International Securities, Pu said Apple is expected to roll out its custom-made 5G modem starting with the next-generation...
ios 18 2 chatgpt plus

iOS 18.2 Beta 2 Shows Siri ChatGPT Limit, Offers 'Plus' Upgrade Option

Monday November 4, 2024 10:54 am PST by
With the second beta of iOS 18.2 that's available for developers today, Apple has further fleshed out the ChatGPT integration that's available with Siri. In the Settings app, there's now a section that shows the ChatGPT daily limit, and offers an option to upgrade to the paid ChatGPT Plus plan. The beta includes an Advanced Capabilities section with a "Daily Limit" reading that shows up as...
M3 Pro Max vs M4 Pro Max Feature

Here's How Much Faster M4 Pro/Max Are for Graphics vs. M3 Pro/Max

Friday November 1, 2024 8:04 am PDT by
Apple's new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips are impressively fast in terms of CPU performance, topping the M2 Ultra, but what about graphics performance? The first Geekbench 6 results for GPU performance are now available for the M4 Pro and M4 Max, and the Metal scores reveal some impressive year-over-year gains. Based on the Metal scores that are available so far, the M4 Pro and M4 Max are up to...
imac video apple feature

What to Expect From Apple This November

Friday November 1, 2024 9:40 am PDT by
After a busy October in which Apple announced new Macs and Apple Intelligence launched, the calendar has now turned to November. Below, we outline what to expect from Apple this month as the slower-but-still-busy holiday season approaches. After seeding the first betas of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 with additional Apple Intelligence features last month, Apple will likely...

Top Rated Comments

Stromos Avatar
4 hours ago at 11:01 am
Layoff QA engineers hire more emoji designers! /s
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CrysisDeu Avatar
4 hours ago at 11:07 am

I wonder too. I've never worked in tech, or even adjacent to tech.

I have a cousin that is a developer at the spaceship, and he strictly works internal software used at the retail locations. I guess there are all types of positions that don't work on consumer-facing things.
I work in tech, things don’t go as fast as you would expect. But Apple moves sooo slow..

Huawei have 207,000 full time employees, Samsung electronics have 267,800, Xiaomi 32,500 for comparison.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sw1tcher Avatar
3 hours ago at 12:01 pm

You think they'd have enough people to figure out how to get the Magic Mouse to charge without flipping it over. ?
Those people were moved to work on the Mac mini's power button. In the end they were like "F it. Let's be consistent and put it on the bottom like the charging port of the Magic Mouse."
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Schmitti81 Avatar
4 hours ago at 10:47 am
With 160000 people:
If they stay in average 4 years, Apple needs to higher about 40000 per year in average or about 150 per work day.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacTwick Avatar
4 hours ago at 10:58 am
I want to mention that Apple offered other positions to the majority of the people on the car project. And to those who didn't get offered another position, they were given 90 days to apply internally for another role at Apple.

This is much different than a traditional layoff we see happening daily in tech, and is very misleading.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
picpicmac Avatar
1 hour ago at 01:23 pm

why Apple moves so slowly.
Slowly for what, exactly?

Also, things you seem to not know:
1) Samsung was started in 1938, had the problem of wars of course, but is a general manufacturing company that makes all sorts of things, like refrigerators. That you are comparing them to Apple is odd.
2) Huawei was started by a guy from the PLA, fulfills directives of the CCP, and that is why some nations limit or ban Huawei in some form.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)