Apple has given some of its engineers significant stock bonuses starting at $50,000 to as much as $180,000 in a bid to stave off defections to its rivals, specifically Meta.
The group includes those working in silicon design, hardware and select software and operations group, according to reports. Many of the engineers received amounts of roughly $80,000, $100,000 or $120,000 in shares, a source disclosed to local media.
Per the reports, the shares vest over four years, providing an incentive to stay at Apple, and were given to those for their high work performance.
Although Apple and Meta may seem like different businesses, they are both working to make waves in the virtual and augmented reality space. Just like Apple developed its smart watch, the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company is also rumored to be developing its own smartwatch.
According to reports, in the last few months, Meta hired about 100 engineers from Apple, but Apple has also taken its share of key employees from the social media giant. The most recent was Meta’s AR public relations head, Andrea Schubert.
This tug-of-war of poaching workers has intensified of late as both companies seek to capitalize on the burgeoning metaverse, most heavily marketed by Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Mark in an early interview noted that the push into the futuristic virtual landscape will require top-notch augmented and virtual reality engineering.
Meta disclosed its plans to spend up to $10 billion in metaverse investments this year alone. However, it also encountered its own version of an industry-wide struggle to hire and retain employees.
Meanwhile, not all of Apple’s engineers received the bonuses and those left out are annoyed, saying “the selection process is arbitrary”, according to reports.
According to sources, this kind of compensation is very rare at Apple, as usually employees receive a base salary, stock units and a cash bonus. The sources revealed to local media that it was an “atypical and surprisingly timed” bonus given to about 10 percent to 20 percent of engineers in applicable divisions.
It seems Apple is only putting a lot of effort into its corporate employees and not giving enough attention to its retail staff who staged a company-wide walkout on Christmas Eve as they demanded better pay, paid sick leave, mental health care and better protection for in-store employees.
These retail employees also demanded “N95 masks for all workers, sanitizer stations, appointments for consumers looking to shop inside an Apple Store and a loitering ban inside buildings” to help ease the spread of the coronavirus.
However, the event fell flat across the US. AppleInsider found only ‘one or two’ employees from 10 stores on the east coast participated, but most locations reported all of their staff showing up for work.
Former Apple employee Janneke Parrish admitted that the number of those participating in the walkout was but a small percentage of the company’s workforce of 80,000 people. She called it significant that workers bonded together to speak out against the huge tech giant.
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