Hiring has slowed at Apple ($AAPL) over the past couple of months. Offices are closed, interviews have reportedly been canceled for hundreds, all while supply chain and retail operations have been severely disrupted or outright closed.
But the company does have some activity when it comes to mini hiring sprees, at least in three notable countries: Canada, Italy, and Vietnam. Here's what we're seeing, and here's why there's been some recent activity.
Two weeks ago, Apple reopened 12 stores in Canada. The company has since listed several retail openings in the Great White North, but there appears to be some software engineering hiring going on up there. This comes right around the same time that Apple acquired Canadian machine learning startup Inductiv. Of the 43 job listings posted on June 1 to Apple's careers site, 21 are for Software and Services and 14 are for Apple Retail positions.
|
Category |
Canada Listings |
|---|---|
|
Software and Services |
21 |
|
Apple Retail |
14 |
|
Sales and Business Development |
5 |
|
Hardware |
1 |
|
Corporate Functions |
1 |
|
Design |
1 |
Meanwhile, in Italy, Apple is already opening 10 of its 17 retail stores. As a result, the company has posted 37 job listings for its retail operations in the country — the most we've seen in years. It has also opened up 9 positions in hardware and 3 in Sales and Business Development.
|
Category |
Italy Listings |
|---|---|
|
Apple Retail |
37 |
|
Hardware |
9 |
|
Sales and Business Development |
3 |
|
Support and Service |
1 |
Fresh job listings in Vietnam tell a perhaps more interesting story. A few weeks ago, Apple announced that it would move AirPod Pro manufacturing from China to Vietnam. Right around that time, positions in the company began showing up on Apple's hiring websites. The new job listings reflect the manufacturing shift, with the most common category of openings for Operations and Supply Chain.
|
Category |
Vietnam Listings |
|---|---|
|
Operations and Supply Chain |
9 |
|
Corporate Functions |
2 |
|
Hardware |
1 |
|
Sales and Business Development |
1 |
Apple's job-listing activity has been abnormal at best of late, which is not unique to the Cupertino tech giant. Microsoft has cut back on hiring across the board, while Facebook as slowed hiring except for more senior roles as it moves to a remote workforce. Similarly, Twitter has launched a remote hiring spree that, while not nearly at the volume of in-house hiring activity, does reflect a new normal for HR in tech, at least for now.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales, and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue, and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
