It sounds so good, doesn’t it?
After Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner met with US President Donald J. Trump, Cook dinner introduced: “We’re bullish on the way forward for American innovation, and we’re proud to construct on our long-standing US investments with this $500 billion dedication to our nation’s future. We’ll preserve working with folks and firms throughout this nation to assist write a rare new chapter within the historical past of American innovation.”
Trump smooched again on Reality Social: “APPLE HAS JUST ANNOUNCED A RECORD 500 BILLION DOLLAR INVESTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE REASON, FAITH IN WHAT WE ARE DOING, WITHOUT WITCH, THEY WOULD’NT BE INVESTING TEN CENTS. THANK YOU TIM COOK AND APPLE!!!”
(All of the caps and typos are authentic, by the best way.)
So, what’s to not like about Apple’s plans to rent 20,000 workers over the following 4 years? Properly, lots. You see, we’ve heard this similar track and dance earlier than.
This isn’t the primary time Apple has made such guarantees. In 2018, through the first Trump administration, Apple pledged to create 20,000 new jobs as a part of a $350 billion funding within the US economic system. Then in 2021, with Joseph R. Biden Jr. within the White Home, Apple as soon as extra promised 20,000 new jobs as a part of a $430 billion funding. Do you start to detect a sample right here?
That is now the third time, Apple has promised 20,000 extra jobs.
A giant a part of the 2021 promise was that Apple would construct a brand new campus and engineering hub in North Carolina’s Analysis Triangle Park. Didn’t occur. Apple by no means even broke filth for the challenge — and now says will probably be no less than 4 extra years earlier than it begins constructing a brand new campus.
That might be simply in time for King Donald the First’s crowning (or a brand new President, if we get our act collectively). Be that as it might, I count on Apple to maintain promising extra investments and, sure, extra jobs. In any case, it attracts optimistic headlines.
The truth is that since Apple first promised 40,000 new jobs, it has added about 30,000 or so. This got here after a slight Apple employment dip in 2023.
Now, new jobs are at all times welcome — particularly, since nowadays, the unemployment price has been edging upward. And that’s earlier than Elon Musk’s “Division of Authorities Effectivity” (DOGE) began taking a chainsaw to authorities employment. You possibly can count on unemployment to return to the highs it noticed when Trump was final President, shortly.
For those who’re within the tech business, issues have been even worse. In response to Crunchbase’s tally, “no less than 95,000 staff at U.S.-based tech corporations have been laid off in mass job cuts in 2024…and the cuts have continued into 2025.
So, whereas I’m cynical about Apple’s claims, I’ll give the execs at Apple’s headquarters at Apple Park credit score for truly boosting employment.
In any case, as Paul Farnsworth, President of the highest tech job website Cube, informed me: “Apple has spent years hiring engineers and researchers tasked with serving to the corporate develop an AI technique that aligns with its broader company objectives.”
Andrea Derler, principal of analysis and worth at Visier, the enterprise human-resources firm, added in an e-mail: “This initiative displays Apple’s clear development technique and offers a glimpse into the long run during which human abilities comparable to creativity, curiosity, braveness, compassion and communication might be key amidst the AI revolution.” Defer continued: “Abilities churn may be very excessive within the IT discipline. The lag between newly rising tech abilities gaps and current expertise can’t solely be solved with hiring exterior expertise as a result of it’s costly. That is the place upskilling and reskilling current expertise turns into important to fixing the AI expertise hole.”
However will Apple be hiring or coaching new AI-savvy staffers?
“Though Apple appeared to carry again on AI funding whereas its rivals rushed forward with large, splashy investments in information facilities and AI groups, Tim Cook dinner’s current announcement of a $500 billion dedication to manufacturing AI servers and different initiatives hints at accelerating AI expenditure, which is able to inevitably embody personnel hiring,” Farnsworth mentioned.
I’m not satisfied. Certain, Apple will spend money on AI. However Cook dinner and firm don’t appear to need to be part of Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI in the race to be the primary to create actually helpful generative AI. As a substitute, current Apple leaks about its AI plans make it sound like what Apple desires to do is enhance its iPhone and different end-user shoppers comparable to Siri with AI. Whether or not Apple or another person finally ends up making the massive language mannequin (LLM) that powers its shoppers doesn’t appear that necessary to Apple.
So, I don’t see the $500 billion/20,000 jobs announcement as large information. It’s simply enterprise as normal for Apple. For those who look nearer, you’ll additionally see that a few of these “new” AI investments aren’t actually Apple’s in any respect.
Take, for instance, the corporate’s newest funding plans for a Houston server manufacturing manufacturing facility to be operated by Apple “and companions.” That companion is sort of actually Hon Hai Precision Trade, aka Foxconn, for an already introduced AI server analysis and growth heart in Houston.
Foxconn, the place have we heard that title earlier than? Oh, proper! Again in 2018, Trump and Foxconn introduced a $10-billion deal with 13,000 jobs for a brand new manufacturing facility complicated in Wisconsin.
Guess what occurred? Subsequent to nothing. Immediately, the “Eighth Surprise of the World” is an area joke with not more than 1,000 workers. It seems, you’ll be able to hire what’s on the coronary heart of the positioning for a banquet in order for you.
So, yeah, Apple is hiring extra folks. That’s nice. Sustain the nice work. However, please, this isn’t Large Information. Neither is it an indication that Apple goes all-in on AI. It’s not. It’s simply one other day of Apple making an attempt to make a buck.
Psssst, wanna purchase an iPhone?
