Apple Is the American Company People Quit the Fastest

What’s wrong with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) that people quit their jobs faster than at any other large American company? From the outside, it is one of the most successful public corporations in U.S. history. It is the most valuable brand in the world. It is known for its remarkable innovations. A job at Apple has likely been lucrative for any employee with stock options. Yet, according to a new piece of research, the median tenure for people who work at Apple is only 1.7 years. (What is the worst job in America?)

Resume.io reviewed the LinkedIn pages of the 100 largest companies by market cap across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia for its Companies Employees Don’t Want to Leave in 2023 study to determine years of tenure. Tech did poorly in general. It is difficult for these companies to “onboard talent.” Turnover rates have been high. Layoffs hit the industry over the last year. Apple’s were in May but were modest compared to the mass firings at Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META).

Amazon and Meta were just behind Apple regarding the shortest median tenure at 1.8 years each. Amazon has laid off 27,000 people since late last year. Meta cut 10,000. The layoffs were unusual because neither company was in financial trouble. Both companies said they had expanded too fast, at least in some divisions.

Apple has about 160,000 employees, which has been fairly flat since 2021. Before that, the worker count grew quickly from 80,000 in 2013.

Job search firm Glassdoor gives Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, good ratings. Some 82% of people who work there would recommend it to a friend. Cook gets an employee approval rating of 89%. However, people do complain about Apple’s work/life balance.

So, what is wrong with workers’ perception of Apple? It is not clear. What is clear is that Apple is part of an industry with high turnover.