Abstract:
Apple was recently revealed to have planned to cut about 5,000 jobs in the AppleCare support business, which is equivalent to a large proportion of the total number of employees in the business. The relevant adjustments are considered to be part of the company's push to streamline the organization, reduce costs and improve operational efficiency after new Apple CEO John Ternus took office.
It is reported that Apple has previously provided severance packages to some AppleCare employees and will continue to promote relevant personnel adjustments in the summer and autumn of this year. The positions involved in this plan are mainly concentrated in the AppleCare and Apple Support businesses, which are the teams responsible for handling user technical support, device repair and other after-sales issues.
Apple has not yet publicly confirmed the specific scale of the 5,000-person layoff plan, nor has it announced a unified large-scale layoff plan for the AppleCare business. However, there have been a number of resignations related to Apple Support and AppleCare employees recently. Some employees were also contacted by management and offered separation packages while on leave, including those on medical, maternity, parental leave, military leave, and domestic violence-related leave. A U.S. employment law firm has previously launched an investigation into the circumstances in which these employees were offered severance packages.
If the 5,000-person layoff plan is finally fully implemented, it will become one of Apple's largest personnel adjustments in recent years. Apple has rarely carried out large-scale layoffs in the past. Even during the widespread layoffs in the technology industry in 2023, Apple mainly controlled the size of its personnel through hiring freezes, natural attrition, and reorganization of some teams, rather than large-scale centralized layoffs like other large technology companies.
This AppleCare business adjustment occurs against the background that Apple’s overall organizational structure has begun to change. John Ternus will officially succeed Tim Cook as Apple CEO on September 1, 2026. Since then, Apple is considering streamlining the management level more significantly and further strengthening the engineering team's position in the company's decision-making. Recent reports suggest that Ternus is pushing for a broader organizational change that would bring more direct communication between engineers and senior management and eliminate some middle-management positions.
Apple has recently seen signs of layoffs in other business lines. At the end of August, Apple laid off approximately 147 employees in the Bay Area, some of which were involved in the Vision Pro and Siri projects. In September, Apple Fitness+ was also revealed to have laid off a small number of employees. The relevant team believed that this may be a precursor to further cost reductions and business direction adjustments for the service.
AppleCare itself is an important part of Apple's after-sales service system. In addition to traditional telephone and online technical support, AppleCare also involves repair services, accidental damage protection, and paid services such as AppleCare+. As Apple continues to expand its AppleCare subscription business, this department not only assumes customer support functions, but has also become part of Apple's services business.
Apple has also been continuously adjusting its AppleCare business model in recent years. In July this year, Apple increased the prices of some Mac and iPad AppleCare+ subscription plans. The monthly payment plan in the US market increased by US$0.5, and the annual payment plan increased by US$5. At the same time, Apple continues to promote AppleCare One and launched the AppleCare One Family plan for family users in September, which can cover eligible devices for up to 6 people in a family sharing group.
Therefore, if Apple does further reduce AppleCare front-line support staff, it is likely that in the future it will need to use automation, artificial intelligence, and a more centralized customer service system to take on some of the work originally performed by manual customer service. Apple has been expanding the application scope of artificial intelligence technology in recent years, and the new generation of Siri and related AI services are also gradually advancing. However, there is currently no evidence that all 5,000 positions were eliminated because artificial intelligence replaced human customer service.
At the same time, Apple’s overall employee size remains large. The company has not previously announced a large-scale company-wide layoff plan similar to that of technology giants such as Microsoft and Amazon. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that Apple is optimizing personnel for specific businesses and organizational levels, and AppleCare may become one of the largest businesses in this adjustment.
If 5,000 jobs are eventually eliminated, it will also show that Ternus' management ideas after taking charge of Apple are gradually emerging. Compared with the organizational structure that has remained relatively stable for a long time in the Cook era, the new management is facing pressures such as increased investment in artificial intelligence, rising hardware costs, and expanded demand for new product research and development, and is trying to free up more resources by streamlining the organization and adjusting existing businesses. AppleCare's large-scale job adjustments are still in the reporting and planning stages, and the final number of layoffs and specific implementation methods may still change.
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