Apple has submitted a mandatory notice to the state of California this week, confirming its plans to permanently lay off over 600 employees. The failed autonomous car project is to blame.
According to California legislation, companies must notify employees and state representatives 60 days in advance of a mass layoff, which is why we found out about this layoff through official… and public documents.
The employees mentioned are located in various buildings occupied by Apple in the vicinity of Santa Clara (California), near Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.
It was rumored that several of these places were related to the development of the Apple Car in the past, so it is likely that these layoffs are related to Apple’s decision to stop working on the car project.
Apple ends development of the Apple Car
Approximately 2,000 employees working on the Apple Car were informed that the project was coming to an end in March, and Apple began the process of moving some of them to work in artificial intelligence under the direction of John Giannandrea and in other relevant departments.
Other employees were given 90 days to apply for vacant positions within the company, but Apple hired hardware engineers and car designers while working on the Apple Car, and it’s possible that these employees didn’t have applicable skills for other projects.
Apple has also recently ended internal development of microLED displays, so some of the layoffs could also be related to the decision to interrupt that work.
