Apple lost more than 20,000 talented staff in 2025
by Horace Dediu
Executive exodus explicated
In December, the company lost AI chief John Giannandrea, its top lawyer and a key design executive in a single week. Other recent headlines: "Apple faces unprecedented executive exodus", "Apple rocked by executive departures, with chip chief at risk of leaving next." "Apple home devices executive leaves for Finland's Oura" "Lisa Jackson is set to retire late January 2026, while Kate Adams will retire in late 2026".
That's just the names we hear about. They represent senior executives. But the harsh truth is that Apple lost tens of thousands of talented developers, marketers and mangers last year and this year the numbers will be even higher. Is this indicative of an existential crisis in Cupertino which Tim Cook can't contain? Tim's head alone should be the first to roll to reverse this crisis in headcount.
Alas, math rears its ugly head.
Apple has over 166,000 employees including retail staff. According to one measure, Apple sees 58% of its staff turn over each year, having an average tenure of only 1.7 years, the worst in the tech world. That would imply 96,000 employees leave each year.
That seemed excessive to me and I assumed retail skews the total significantly. Retail, according to comments on Reddit, sees a few months of work per employee. So what is the turnover for its more "permanent" talent?
Let's assume that Apple can hold on to people as well as Alphabet/Google. We don't hear about the crisis of retention at Google. Their average tenure is 3.7 years, implying 27% would quit each year and indicate 49,000 Googlers leaving each year.
That rate applying to Apple would imply 45,000 Apple employees leaving each year. Having twice the tenure of Google would still mean 20,000 Apple employees quit each year.
A headline that screamed that between 20,000 and 30,000 Apple employees [quit, flee, abandon, escape] Apple each year would be perfectly reasonable and suggest a strong degree of loyalty. Moreover, next year the number will be higher because next year there will be more employees.
Of those tens of thousands, surely a few are senior managers. In fact, surveys show that 60% of executives plan to change roles in 3 years. The fact that we only hear of a handful of departures each year implies that Apple is far better at retention than average.
Nevertheless, the exodus continues.
Read more:
https://asymco.com/2026/03/12/how-many-employees-does-apple-have-what-do-they-do/
2 comments
FredHS ·
Apple has 510 retail locations with about 90 to 100 employees per store or about 50,000 retail employees.
FredHS ·
Per Google AI, average retail turnover is 60% to 70%. No doubt Apple has much better retail retention. For many, retail jobs are just that, jobs, not a career path.
Even at 1/2 the low-end, or 30%, retail would account for 15,000 of the turnover.