Getting Those Pesky People Numbers Straight ...

Image by niallkennedy via Flickr

I was just reading a note on VentureBeat about Apple's reduction in employees - or rather "full-time equivalent" employees at it's Apple Stores. Between Anthony Ha and Peter Kafka's comments they rather seem to mess this up and miss the point. Here's an extract from Ha's post:

Apple may have just announced an impressive second quarter earnings, but that doesn’t mean everything is going gangbusters. Revenue growth has slowed at Apple’s retail stores, and the Cupertino, Calif. company just revealed via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (spotted by CNET) that it has cut its retail workforce by 1,600 “full-time equivalents.”

Update: As Peter Kafka points out at MediaMemo, that term most probably means man-hours and not employees, per se:

But let’s be clear: Those aren’t 14,000, or 15,600, employees. Those are 14,000, or 15,600 “full-time equivalents” — basically, an accounting term that measures the number of man-hours Apple is paying for, not the number of men (or women) it is employing. So the very strong likelihood here is that Apple cut a lot of workers’ hours, but not workers themselves.

Here's my comment:

Ok, so you (or Kafka) should understand what makes a "full-time equivalent" (FTE) employee. A single (no, not marital status - one person) employee working a standard 40 hour workweek is "one FTE". Two part-time employees working 20 hours are also "one FTE". Even if they are married, not single. Four part-time employees each working 10 hours are still "one FTE". Even if they live in a commune.

Get it?

Its very likely many Apple Store employees work part time (if not they would not bother counting FTE's - they would just have "employees"). Thus, if Apple got rid of 1600 FTE's they have likely impacted more than 1,600 real people's lives. 3,200 real people if all of the souls disposed of worked an average 20 hours a week each.

And if they are indeed married - and have kids - many more people's lives than that are impacted. But I digress. Yes, Kafka may be right to assume AAPL just cut people's hours. Even if that is so, it has to be more than 1,600 actual souls impacted one way or another.

Still a great company with great products. Waiting for the next iPhone in June ....