Apple to hire 7,400 workers in three years
Apple expects to expand its Silicon Valley workforce by nearly 50
per cent during the next three years, signaling the company's faith in
its ability to keep coming up with hit products like the iPhone and
iPad.
The projections detailed in a report released envision Apple hiring
7,400 more workers at its Cupertino, California, headquarters between
now and the planned completion of a new office complex in 2016. Apple
now employs about 16,000 people in and around Cupertino, the company's
home town for most of its 37-year history. That accounts for about
one-fifth of Apple's nearly 73,000 employees worldwide.
Apple submitted the report to Cupertino city officials as part of its
effort to win approval to build a new 3.4 million-square-foot campus.
Former CEO Steve Jobs likened the proposed campus to a spaceship in his
final public appearance four months before he died in October 2011 after
a long fight with pancreatic cancer.
Cupertino so far has been largely supportive of Apple's plans for the
new headquarters, but city officials are still seeking more information
to help inform their final decision on the project.
The report commissioned from consulting firm Keyser Marston Associates
provides a rare glimpse into the nerve center of Apple's closely guarded
operations. The snapshot doesn't shed any light on Apple's upcoming
products, but the anticipated need for so many more workers at the
company's headquarters is an indication that management has grand
ambitions that will require a lot more engineering prowess.
Investors, though, have begun to question whether Apple's idea factory
has been drying up since Jobs died. Although its revenue is still
steadily rising, Apple has been depending on upgrades to the iPhone and
iPad instead of releasing another breakthrough product.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, Jobs' hand-picked successor, has hinted that the
company may be working on something revolutionary in television sets or a
wearable computing device, such as a wristwatch. It hasn't been enough
to allay Wall Street's fears that Apple is losing its magic touch while
facing tougher competition from a list of formidable rivals that
includes Google, Samsung Electronics, Amazon.com and Microsoft.
The persisting concerns have caused Apple's stock to fall 36 per cent
from its all-time high reached last September. The shares closed Tuesday
at $449.31.
With annual revenue of nearly $157 billion, Apple can still afford to
treat the people working at its headquarters extremely well.
The report estimates Apple paid the 16,000 employees working in the
Cupertino area a combined $2 billion in salary last year. That
translates into an average salary of $125,000 per Cupertino-area
employee. Apple didn't provide Keyser Marston with specific salary
figures, so the firm used salary data for Silicon Valley software
engineers filed with the state government. The numbers represent a
"conservative" estimate of the employees' salaries, according to the
report.
Although the report didn't touch on the subject, Apple probably doesn't
pay the employees working outside its headquarters nearly as well.
Nearly 43,000 of Apple's employees worldwide work in the company's
stores or other jobs in its retail division, according to the company's
annual report. Apple has also come under blistering criticism for
relying on contractors that hire cheap labor in China and other overseas
factories to assemble its products.
Not surprisingly, the Keyser Marston report draws a flattering portrait
of Apple. It depicts the company as an indispensable cog in Silicon
Valley's economy, a sensitive issue for Apple after coming under fire
last month in Washington for legally sheltering a large chunk of its
profits overseas to minimize its US tax bill. Apple CEO Tim Cook
testified before a Senate subcommittee in an attempt to convince
skeptical lawmakers that the company has been doing more than its share
to support the US economy.
Much of the Keyser Marston report breaks down the economic benefits that
Apple brings to a city with a population of about 58,000 people. Apple
will pay $9.2 million in taxes to Cupertino during the current fiscal
year ending in June, accounting about 18 percent of the city's general
fund, according to the report. If the new headquarters is built, the
report estimated the Apple's tax contributions to Cupertino will rise to
$13 million annually.
Nearly 1,300 of Apple's 16,000 headquarters workers live in Cupertino.
Another 2,100 of the headquarters workers live in the neighboring cities
of Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.
Source : TOI
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