Lay-offs have become common as a winter cold as companies from New York to Silicon Valley cope with the ailing economy. But Apple, in its inimitable way, is hoping a bit of employee shuffling will prevent any more pink slips.
Friday, Palm confirmed it would drop employees from the Treo maker, telling CNET the move was made due to “challenges facing our company and the industry.” Although Palm didn’t mention the number of layoffs, Silicon Valley blog Valleyway put the figure at 1,050.
Apple, despite recently eating into Palm’s marketshare, hasn’t escaped worrying about a slowdown in consumer demand for gadgets. However, instead of jobs cuts, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is experimenting with reduced hours for its sales staff and extra duty for Apple Store workers more accustom to answering support questions or tackling creative tasks.
As part of the limited trial, Mac Specialists, who greet customers at the door and push Apple products, will have their part-time schedules reduced by four hours. To compensate, Apple Geniuses will be asked to take up the slack – working four extra hours per week as a Specialist. Apple employees working in the Studio are will be required to work eight hours in sales, according to Apple Insider.
The job shuffling effects an unknown number of Apple retail locations. The trial results will determine whether the job shuffling will expand or be ditched in favor of ordinary job cuts.
Both Apple and Palm are responding to slower sales. Even usually brisk online transactions are lower, according to a new estimate of sales for this year’s holiday period.
Consumers are expected to spend just $30 million online in November and December, according to researchers at eMarketer. The company revised its previous sales projection, which had been on track to mark another year of double-digit e-commerce growth.
“People are going to be more frugal this holiday season,” analyst Jeffrey Grau said in a statement. EMarketer announced Monday it expects online sales to grow just 4 percent, down from the 10 percent earlier projected.
Online sales will likely increase by 7.2 percent for all of 2008, less than half of the 19.2 percent reported in 2007.
Meanwhile, in a bit of economic irony, Palm’s saviour may come from its rival Apple. Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s former senior engineering vice-president, in September joined Palm’s board of directors as part $725 millionfrom investment firm Elevation Partners.
