Apple job cuts: 700 employees laid off, mainly from these two teams

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Apple has officially confirmed layoffs impacting over 700 employees, according to multiple online reports. The layoffs come after the cancellation of two high-profile — yet unconfirmed — projects: the self-driving car initiative (Project Titan) and the development of in-house Micro-LED displays.

California has a mandatory process where companies have to file notices under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) ACT. Apple filed notices and looking at the notices it was clear which teams were impacted the most because of the job cuts.

According to a report by 9to5Mac, one of the teams impacted the most was the MicroLED display deal. In 2014, Apple acquitted LuxVue Technology, a company specialising in display tech. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Apple was ditching its plans of creating MicroLED display for the Apple Watch. As per Bloomberg, production issues were the primary reason for Apple cancelling development of MicroLED displays.

The layoffs also affected Siri development. Notices filed in San Diego align with a January report about Apple closing a Siri data operations office there. This office, as per reports, was involved in evaluation user interactions with Siri and played an important role in improving the voice assistant’s accuracy. However, Apple then offered employees an option to be relocated to Austin, Texas.

Project Titan, Apple's secretive self-driving car project, also saw significant cuts, as per reports. WARN notices revealed layoffs from offices previously linked to car development and testing. Apple had reportedly been working on an electric car since 2014, but the project was ultimately shelved last month. The Apple Car project burnt a lot of cash and Apple did reportedly have 2,000 employees working on the project. It was reported that Apple had decided to abandon Project Titan to focus on AI and employees who couldn’t be absorbed in other teams would be asked to leave the company.