Apple Fences Its Employees From Meta Seduction, Promises Big Bonuses And Shares

JAKARTA - Apple is offering huge bonuses to employees in an effort to defend the best talent it has from rival companies such as Meta, Facebook's parent company.

According to a Bloomberg News report, Apple offers a bonus of 50,000 to 180,000 US dollars. In fact, according to an internal source, many of the company's engineers have received an amount of about 80,000, 100,000 or 120,000 US dollars in shares.

Apple notified several engineers in select silicon design, hardware and software and operations groups last week that they would receive the bonus, which is issued as a limited stock unit.

An abnormal final payout in the company's compensation package, which includes base salary, units of stock and cash bonuses, was also provided, Bloomberg News reported.

The software giant has been providing additional cash bonuses to employees, but the size of the latest stock grants is unusual and the timing is surprising, with about 10 to 20 percent going to engineers in applicable divisions, the source added.

The new bonus program has irritated some engineers because they did not accept shares and believed that the selection process was arbitrary.

The source also added that the award was given by the manager as a reward for high performance.

This comes as Apple is at war with other Silicon Valley companies such as Meta, which has reportedly hired 100 former Apple employees in recent months.

Meta, which owns the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has relied on a significant pay raise to capture engineering talent from Apple for the "metaverse" initiative it is developing.

As a counter-measure, according to TheHill.com report Apple has lured some key Meta employees as well. However, Apple did not immediately comment on the allegations.