“Apple’s flashy new $5 billion campus, one of the last projects worked on by company co-founder Steve Jobs before his death, has custom-built door handles, thousands of trees and a 100,000-square-foot fitness and wellness facility that boasts a two-story yoga room covered in custom distressed stone,” Shara Tibken reports for CNET. “What the campus doesn’t have, though, is a day care center.”
“The question people in Silicon Valley are asking is: Should it?” Tibken reports. “‘Huge gym but no day care. Apple campus gets it wrong,'” tweeted longtime tech executive Mitch Kapor, who invests in social impact tech startups through Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center for Social Impact.”
“Quartz called the move a ‘missed opportunity,’ while Slate asked, ‘Shouldn’t Apple and companies like it want to set an example that the workplace of the future cares about its employees’ families?'” Tibken reports. “Under CEO Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple has put itself at the front of social issues like LGBT rights, racial equality and the tech industry’s need to improve workforce diversity… Still, Apple’s latest diversity report showed the percentage of women rose only one percentage point from the previous year, to 32 percent. One way to attract women, say experts, is by being more accommodating to families.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: With “only 2 percent of US employers offer[ing] subsidized child care centers — either on the company’s campus or nearby — in 2016, down from 9 percent in 1996,” Apple hardly needs the liability headaches and loss of already limited space* in order to compete for employees, especially versus lesser companies making inferior products.
*Tim Cook is on record telling Steve Jobs that the new campus’ biggest challenge of all was “deciding which employees are going to sit in the main building” and which would have to work in the outer buildings.
If they had day care, imagine the sight of kids frolicking through the trees on the campus. Cue Scenes From Childhood.
Meh, in Apple’s eyes more like little liabilities running around. Who foots the bill for the multi-million $ pane of glass cracked by a baseball.
No, Apple is not going to have a lack of space once the Mothership becomes 100% habitable. But I can’t imagine putting day care into any of the productivity buildings. Keep the kids in an outer building on the campus for several reasons.
As to whether Apple ‘should’ provide day care? Not my area of expertise. But if I was a parent employee, I’d certainly appreciate it. Please, associate children with parents, not just women. We live in the present tense, not the past.
My kids are already out of the house and married, so child care is not something I had recently given much thought to. But then when my daughter-in-law got a job at Intel, and I heard they had free child care (not to mention a gym and free meals), I must admit that I was thrilled! As a long-time Mac user, I’ve had mixed impressions about Intel over the years, but I must admit that they went way up in my eyes recently!
No, not with thousands of people the liability is too high.
So, no matter how much Tim Cook may play SJW, he will never fully satisfy the leftist snowflakes eh? What a shocker that is. /s
Snowflakes, huh? That famous right-wing label-and-disparage tactic…oversimplify and vilify. You get all crazy about being called “deplorables” when you have been calling the opposition all kinds of foul things for a long, long time.
Your current POTUS campaigned on bringing people together and representing everyone. Yet he publicly calls Democrats the “enemy.” What a great way to gain supporters and influence people. But that was what many expected from Trump after his decades-long hyper-ego trip of exaggeration, deception, fabrication, and falsification.
Far more distressing was the call from Paul Ryan to avoid working with the Democrats in Congress. What kind of idiot walls off nearly half of the legislative body? The same kind of idiot that will ultimately blame the very group that he ostracized, no doubt. History repeats itself.
If there is any humor in a TRUMPanzee Administration, it is the fact that the POTUS is single-handedly creating a potential impeachment situation when all he had to do to stay safe was keep his pie-hole shut (for once). Too bad for him that his ego is far more powerful than his eight-year-old personality.
There is a huge difference between the deplorable and snowflake labels. The latter is true. And yes, it is appropriate to call Demoncrats the enemy, since they act the part.
Trump should work with the Demons just as the Abomination did with the Rs.
The lying, trainorous man-baby is the biggest snowflake of all.
Too fast. Damn lack of editing.
What you fail to realize Sean is that you’re in a tiny minority among whites. Once the civil war starts you’ll have no allies. Your pet “vibrants” aren’t going to help you. Sucks.
We knew what you were saying, just like we know that Nick is proving your point by threatening to levy war against the United States as part of a race war. That is precisely the definition of treason, of course.
Child care is only for liberals now?
“Apple hardly needs the liability headaches and loss of already limited space*”
Oh, you mean all those things associated with a “100,000-square-foot fitness and wellness facility that boasts a two-story yoga room”? Apple hardly needs those?
There will always be someone nitpicking something about Apple’s practices. Cue Mitch Kapor, whose consultancy is in decline (2% of firms offering child support benefits today vs 9% 20 tears ago).
It would seem that firms have examined the cost/benefit ratios of offering subsidized child care, and found it wanting.
They didn’t get better enplanes.
They didn’t get more productivity.
Firms are better off giving up to 3 months unpaid maternity leave.
greggthurman,
Firms are always better off obeying the law. Since 1993, large employers have been required to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave each year for maternity leave. They have also been required to do this for fathers, and for the parents of newly-adopted children. This is the twenty-first century, and there are men who are the primary child-carer.
Most companies offer far more than those minimum benefits, just as most firms pay more than is legally required ($21,000/year for a full-time 50-week employee in California). My guess is that a high-tech firm that only offered the legally required—unpaid—leave would save as much money as a high-tech firm that paid no more than minimum wage. It would save its entire labor budget because it would have no employees.
As other commenters mention, there might be a problem providing on-site care for employees at this location, but not for similarly-situated employees at other California locations. Similarly if all of the thousands of employees at this location were not given the same access across the board. Given the nature of Apple’s operations, an eight-hour daycare would not work. Because one would have to pay a premium to hire qualified night workers, 24-hour daycare would be more than three times as expensive. A facility that size would also require an on-site medical staff and equipment, and liability insurance to cover all the above.
Daycare on that scale would be massively expensive. Apple would be foolish not to consider other options to address the very real problem of affordable child care. Consider that families with two children may spend more on childcare than on housing, and then consider that it is hard to find a small rental in the Bay Area for under $2000/month.
The real question is not whether Apple has onsite care. The question is whether Apple is providing enough other benefits (including paid family leave, flexible working hours, and child-care subsidies) to attract desirable employees who might otherwise choose to work for a firm with an on-site childcare facility.
Since I don’t know what Apple provides, I can’t answer that question. I do know that 3 months of unpaid leave for birth-mothers only is insufficient both legally and in the labor marketplace.
You really missed the boat on the Soviet Union, if you’re quick about it you might make it in time for the tail end of the “worker’s paradise” in Cuba.
Says the man who threatened above to commit treason by levying war against the United States in a racist crusade.
What, exactly, did I say that sounded even remotely like I might favor the Cuban system over the American tradition of allowing workers to seek the best pay and benefits available to them? In socialist societies, employees have no choice. In capitalist societies, employees and employers both have multiple options, so employers have to compete for skilled workers.
They can basically only offer two inducements: pay and benefits. The company that offers the best combination of those will attract the best workers. Companies that treat their workers like scum will not. Nothing un-American about that.
RC –
Um, child care is only for leftists? What do you do with your kids, leash them to a lamp post in the Walmart parking lot?
Child care is extremely expensive in CA. Imagine if 1% of the 12000 employees had kids of childcare age. That’s 120 capacity needed. Space and staff. Plus they would be obliged to offer it at all the other CA locations.
Really not practical.
The real reason for not having child care at Apple Park is probably a law as you state: if you provide child care at one location, you must provide child care at all your locations.
I would just assume Apple pays for child care for a certain level of employee but not all employees- I.E. Senior engineers and executives but not retail employees.
You can’t have everything nor will Apple provide it. Now what?
Why do people keep such statistics in their head like ” Women employees up by 1 % shit like that???” Apple is running a company and for that matter all companies are not bio diversity organisation. If an employee is talented and capable and happens to be a women she will get employed. Thats it. Why so many percent Black, so many percent Hispanic etc etc!!!
Apple once had an image of being “for the people”, not business. Just think of their 1984 ad. Of thinking of the user. Their employees. The assemblers at Foxconn. Of wearing turtlenecks. Of making friendly computers with a smile.
Decisions like this one have shown that Apple has not simply become a bigger company, but that they have adopted the business ethics they once fought against. They’ve joined the Microsofts and Googles and Facebooks. They’ve become the suits.
And that is deeply sad.
But not as sad as MDNs take on this.
Yes, Apple and MDN not supporting communism is “deeply sad” and offensive against “TheTruth” LOL
In what bizarre universe is providing employees with benefits communist? I would guess it is the same world you describe above, where you tell a Trump opponent, “you’re in a tiny minority among whites. Once the civil war starts you’ll have no allies.” Levying a race war against the United States is the very definition of treason.
You’re a statist, you think only in terms of government power and “benefits” that are coerced by taxes or by force. I don’t live in the US so I won’t be participating in the civil war the left is bringing on. You won’t last long though. Just a heads up!
Is there any rod that the media wont use to hit Apple with. Fair objective criticism is one thing but the fact it is always Apple who gets this criticism while others are regularly ignored really is getting extreme. A smattering of consistency really would be nice for a change.
Tim Cook has publicly proclaimed himself as a “social justice” warrior. Therefore, he has made himself and Apple subject to criticism and comment for any and all social issues and controversies. Cook cannot go around telling other people how to think and behave, and not expect a reaction.
Ah, this old nonsense — If Tim Cook wants to speak on social justice he has to do everything for everybody.
No.
Also, fer chrissake you whiners, he speaks VERY occassionally on such issues… FAR less often that you all complain about it.
If I was Timmy Boy, I’d just pay for private Nannys or Mannys for their employees.
Daycare would be a “bag of hurt”.
First, you could have a regular daycare for regular boys and girls.
But then you’d have to have separate daycares for only girls and one for only boys.
Separate ones for the transgender kids who are afraid of being made fun of by regular kids.
A separate one for the Muslim kids who might be offended by having to share the same space with “Infidels”. Hell, you’d probably need separate boys and girls Muslim daycares just because.
Then you’d need one for the kids who’s parents voted for Trump to keep them safe from all the tolerant, accepting of different ideas, indoctrinated kids of the “I’m with Her” employees.
Get my drift?
To quote Oscar Hammerstein in South Pacific:
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
A perfect description of our Liberal-run public school system. I’ve never seen so much teaching to hate Trump or anything conservative. They pretty much want to have the kids feel guilty for being American.
Other lessons:
Hate Christians
Hate guns
Hate SUV’s
Hate smoking but embrace pot
Hate white people
Hate cops
Hate Corporations
Hate CEOs
Hate CO2
Hate coal
Hate all fossil fuels
Hate FOX News
And on and on and on….
It’s far more than being taught, our nature recoils against white leftists who would assasinate their civilization with multiculturalism, “diversity” and political correctness. It’s a biological reaction to a deadly threat.
Who let this neo-Nazi scum out of the sewer?
I am surprised that the new Apple campus does not appear to include child care facilities. If so, it would appear to be a surprising oversight for a company that prides itself on its progressive attitudes. But do we really know the whole story?
Does the new Apple campus truly lack a child care facility for its employees? If so, why?
What are Apple’s current employee policies with respect to child care? Does Apple already support child care for its employees off-campus via third parties? Perhaps the company intends to evolve its child care provisions in the future, now that its new campus is nearing completion?
Is there a federal or California state law that somehow discourages it? Are there liability concerns that would somehow frighten a massive company like Apple?
Too many people in this country seem all too eager to make knee-jerk judgments based on far too little information. Take a step back, first. Learn more and consider the situation more fully before passing judgment.
If Apple subsidized childcare I’m sure no one would object….well, maybe someone. I think Apple providing employees with extra cash for childcare is a superb idea. I wonder why no one else every came up with that idea?
How many people working there need day care? Is day care appropriate for the environment? Think me a monster if you must, but children do not belong everywhere, and I would imagine people employed by Apple make more than enough money to pursue other and quite good options.
What harm would it do for Apple to have a child care facility at that huge campus? In this modern time of equality I am surprised that children are still the last to be considered. If we are up in arms about bathroom equality how then can there not be a child care facility at Apple? What the hell?
No, it was the right decision no kids at work..