According to Bloomberg, during the current economic slowdown, Apple's pressure on layoffs is less than that of its technology peers, mainly because the company's recruitment efficiency is higher.

In the recruitment boom fueled by the epidemic, Apple has fewer new employees than other large technology companies. Most importantly, according to Bloomberg data, the revenue generated by each new employee of Apple is far higher than that of its peers.

This more cautious approach is achieving results. Although Apple has frozen its recruitment in some areas and restricted its expenditure, especially the expenditure other than research and development, the company has not cut staff on a large scale like Amazon, Google under Alphabet, Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, and other technology giants.

Apple announced this week that it plans to strengthen human resources management by hiring the first chief personnel officer, with Deirdre O'Brien, the retail director, taking the dual role.

Peter Garry of Sembo Bank said: "Compared with other technology companies, this shows that Apple's operation and management quality is better, while other technology companies seem to misinterpret the industry's signals during the expansion during the epidemic."

Many technology companies admit that they recruited too many people during the epidemic and gambled on the change of lifestyle, including telework, e-commerce spending and video game habits, which would bring more unexpected wealth, but now they are dealing with the aftermath of this ambition. For example, Zoom, a video service company, was one of the beneficiaries during the COVID-19 blockade period, but just this week it announced a 15% layoff.

By contrast, Apple is more cautious. From 2020 to 2022, the number of employees has only increased by 20%, while Alphabet has increased by 60% and Amazon has nearly doubled. The latter two companies recently announced layoffs, totaling about 30000 people.

During the epidemic, the income generated by each additional employee of Apple was also much higher than that of the previous three years, which was in sharp contrast with most of the technology peers.

Although the number of employees does not fully explain Apple's advantages over its competitors, the company has also created high business sales, which to some extent shows the output efficiency of its employees and the positive impact of its recruitment policy on the company.

Shannon Cross, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said: "Apple's frugal spending strategy depends on the management's management of shareholder funds and close attention to investment growth opportunities."