Apple is reportedly planning to lay off nearly 200 employees at Beats Electronics following its $3 billion worth acquisition of the renowned headphone and music streaming company.
Apple, best known for its premium smartphones, tablets and PCs, has planned its first move after acquiring Beats Electronics. According to people familiar with the proceedings of the deal, the Cupertino tech giant will let go off nearly 200 employees at Beats following its acquisition, 9to5Mac originally reported on Wednesday. The job cut is an indicative move, justified by the overlapping of roles at human resources, finance and other departments.
By laying off nearly 200 employees at Beats Electronics, Apple will be cutting down 29 percent of the Beats' 700-employee workforce, sources revealed.
"We're excited to have the Beats team join Apple, and we have extended job offers to every Beats employee," Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Apple, told Bloomberg confirming the changes in the management, Thursday. "Because of some overlap in our operations, some offers are for a limited period and we'll work hard during this time to find as many of these Beats employees as we can another permanent job within Apple."
Apple announced the deal to acquire Beats Electronics for $3 billion in May. The multi-billion dollar deal, which was the largest in Apple's history, required the company's co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre to join the Cupertino operating base. The deal paves the way for Apple to compete in music streaming space, where big players like Pandora take up a large market share. Apple already offers its own iTunes Radio service, iTunes Store and iTunes Match but Beats' acquisition will help it grow.
Mergers of large companies often result in staff reductions due to overlapping of roles. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that it will lay off 18,000 employees over the next six months. The job cut is mainly seen as a result of Nokia acquisition, which was announced in September last year.
According to 9to5Mac's report, Apple has "largely dismantled" employees from Beats' finance, HR and support departments, with some asked to go in the past few weeks. The tech giant has also offered few definite positions and kept some until the end of January 2015.
