[kemiller2002]

My heart goes out to those people. I am sure they are dedicated and talented individuals, but I don't understand why this is news. It's a company, and a project got canceled. It's what happens.

[Ajay-p]

It's noteworthy because it's Apple, and it's self driving cars. If this has been 600 employees let go from something else it may not have gotten so much attention. But this is Apple, the world's largest company and it's about its mythical car project.

[mupuff1234]

> the world's largest company

That would be msft currently.

[reaperducer]

Because they're human beings, not KPI points.

Moreover, 600 is a lot of human beings, and it follows a recent trend of tech companies' mass layoffs from which Apple has mostly avoided.

[Retric]

In context finding new jobs for ~1400 out of ~2000 people working on a car protect seems reasonable simply because it’s very different from their usual project.

I doubt they have much need for mechanical engineers, drivers, mechanics, etc. Still unpleasant for those laid off, but I like seeing companies take these kinds of risks.

[jjice]

Huh, I didn't realize that Apple had mostly avoided it, but you're definitely right. In their defense, the other large tech companies just started trimming fat from everywhere it seems, where as this seems like a direct business decision to abandon an entire project. Still rough for those involved, but it feels less bad than the other mass layoffs to me.

[JumpCrisscross]

> 600 is a lot of human beings, and it follows a recent trend of tech companies' mass layoffs

It’s absurd to describe this as a mass layoff even relative to the 5,000 people Apple employed for this project alone. If a company can’t lay off a few hundred people after cancelling a major project, we’ve effectively banned it from taking risks.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Coming from defense, projects or contracts end all of the time but usually everyone is able to find other projects to work on. Why are they hiring for a bazillion positions while laying off these people?

https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/search

[dewey]

You don’t know what kind of jobs got layed off. They could be very car specific and not useful for other product lines. I doubt they layed off 600 software engineers.

[brookst]

The project was rumored to have 5000 employees. It’s too much of a leap to assume that nobody working on it was moved to other work. And while any layoffs suck, 12% or so not finding a new place in the company seems remarkably good for a defunct project in a vertical like automotive.

[rescripting]

Because they’re different skill sets? The people test driving the cars aren’t hardware engineers.

[espadrine]

I have heard that some jobs were able to find a new home. The work that was needed for Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in the car, was adapted within the Vision Pro. But not all expertise translates easily.

[nerdjon]

It is still important news, however it seems to me this shouldn't be grouped into the same discussion as all of the other tech layoffs since this was tied to a canceled project.

Especially given that the car project was apparently 2000 people from the project, not being able to find other positions for about a quarter of those people is I think valid.

I mean yeah it is unfortunate for the people affected, but projects are canceled. It is entirely possible, especially given some of the unique skills needed specifically for a car, there are people who just won't have a place anywhere else.

[commandlinefan]

I'm always surprised they didn't find somewhere else to put the people when this happens, though. Surely Apple has other projects that aren't cancelled?

[ToucanLoucan]

I can't imagine the sort of people who design cars are going to have much to do elsewhere in Apple, unfortunately.

[kypro]

Not necessarily disagreeing, but I believe when it was originally announced they said that the team on this project would be mostly migrated to their AI division.

[danpalmer]

They were mostly redeployed. The car division was ~2000 people and ~600 are being laid off.

[TiredOfLife]

It's Apple. They are good. They would never do layoffs like those evil companies like Google, Microsoft or Facebook. /s