Apple cuts jobs in its online service division.

Apple Inc laid off 100 jobs in its Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore, reducing the service division’s workforce, as per Bloomberg on Tuesday. This includes furloughing engineers and other service teams such as the employees in Apple News. The total number of current workers isn’t clear as the company didn’t respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.

However, the company had at least 161,000 full-time employees according to the 2023 annual report. Apple has been reorganising teams amid the growing demand for artificial intelligence to keep pace in the race. Since sales declined in China, Apple faced a headwind last year.

Apple Books has been a lesser priority for the company which doesn’t see it as a major part of the service division, but it is anticipated to evolve over time and the layoffs aren’t a reason for its less focus, as per the reports.

In Apple, mass terminations come once in a blue moon compared with other tech giants, but recently there have been noted at least four rounds of workforce eliminations this year. The early quarter witnessed layoffs of more than a hundred employees when it halted the self-driving car project. It also shuttered a team in San Diego as well, according to the Bloomberg report.

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These global layoffs by tech companies raise concerns and escalate tensions among employees, as other tech companies have furloughed their workers from various departments. Earlier this year, Dell announced that they had dismissed an unspecified number of employees marked as its second largest layoff in a year. This sudden change was initiated cutting marketing divisions and sales rooting toward artificial intelligence. The same week, Intel initiated a mass layoff which may affect at least 15,000 employees in the company.

Microsoft recently fired its DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) employees because of changing business needs in the company. An official mail was sent to the whole team indicating that the DEI department intends to cease functioning due to internal business restructuring. Following the layoff, Microsoft confronted a severe backlash as an internal team leader accused the company of lacking support and negligence toward the team.

Also, read| Microsoft Cuts DEI Workforce: Faces Backlash