Apple to give retail store employees up to $1,000 in one-time bonuses

Apple will give retail store employees up to $1,000 in one-time bonuses next month, following a tumultuous effort to get its retail operations back on track after the varied responses to COVID-19.

Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:

The iPhone maker will give $1,000 to retail staff hired before March 31, while anyone who joined after that date will receive $500, according to people familiar with the situation. New workers for the holiday shopping season will get $200, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. The payouts also will go to AppleCare and online sales workers as well.

The bonuses will be an unusual perk since Apple rarely gives companywide payouts. The last major one was $2,500 worth of restricted stock units in 2018. That bonus followed tax changes allowing Apple to bring back cash from offshore accounts at a lower cost. The new bonuses will be issued via cash in paychecks, rather than as stock units, the people said.

The bonuses were presented to retail workers as a recognition of the difficulty working through the pandemic… Still, some workers see the bonuses as an acknowledgment of growing unrest among both retail and corporate staff, according to the people. Employees have complained about pay equity and other concerns at the Cupertino, California-based technology giant, with two high-profile cases getting investigated by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board.

MacDailyNews Take: We’d bet, and Apple likely is, too, that a significant percentage of employees will give that right back to Apple in the form of purchases of the company’s products and services, especially as it arrives just in time for Christmas shopping season.