Slashdot Mirror
Apple Store Employees Soak Up the Atmosphere, But Not Much Cash
raque writes "The NYTimes is reporting on just
how badly Apple Retail employees are being paid. Apple is exploiting its fan base for cheap labor. This is one reason I don't go to Apple Stores if I can avoid it. Stores like NY's Tekserve offer a great shopping experience without so exploiting their workers." Would you rather start at an Apple store for $11.91 an hour (average starting base pay, according to the linked article) and an employee discount, or at Tiffany for $15.60?
"Would you rather start at an Apple store for $11.91 an hour (average starting base pay, according to the linked article) and an employee discount, or at Tiffany for $15.60?"
I think the people who work at Apple Stores -- and others waiting for callbacks -- have already answered that.
What, supply and demand suddenly can't drive wages now?
But I imagine this, like any article on Foxconn (aka "Apple factory"; forget all other customers), will be another anti-Apple free-for-all, so have fun!
With US unemployment at a six month high and the global economy in the tank, a story comes out that people making > $11 / hour at the local Apple store have it hard off?
Pretty sure that there are 10 people waiting in the queue for every 1 job that opens up at one of these stores.
Are you kidding me? They have no specialized skill. It's a basic retail job. Some people in the US would kill for $12 an hour. And you even get to hang out in the air-conditioning. Give me a break.
Not true. The margins on almost every PC manufacturer are razor thin. That may change with the advent of Ultrabooks, but only for a short time.
Even for the non-genius bar employees, is $11.91/hour starting pay for retail supposed to be shocking or what? I worked many jobs just out of high school in the 90's for $5/hour, it's been a long time since I was paid hourly but am I really that disconnected that I think 12 bucks an hour seems fair?
Your comment is based on your lack of understanding about how badly the dollar has devalued. $12/hour isn't a living wage in a lot of places.
My kingdom for a donkey!
has gone up dramatically since the 1990s, and the Consumer Price Index has essentially been 'gamed' to hide all of this.
gasoline in particular went haywire about the same time that the commodities exchanges switched from open pits to electronic trading (see the book Asylum by McGrath-Goodman for more information)
food is linked to gasoline of course, but it still doesn't explain why flour is fluctuating up and down by 100% every few months.
housing of course went through the roof thanks to the subprime mortgage securities and their deriviatives (CDOs, Synthetic CDOs, etc), and the foreclosure robo-signing scandal has backlogged the system so much that prices still havent come down properly.
in other words, yes, things have changed.
which saw several million casualties and refugess, including over a million people dead, with chemical warfare and massive tank battles, and then the 1991 gulf war where Saddam set his own oil fields on fire.... then of course the 1970s violent revolution in Iran, the rise of the Ba'ath Party in Syria and Iraq, the Suez crisis, the various wars against israel, etc.
compared to all that, the US invasion in 2003 of Iraq is not very big. it seems big, but it really does not explain the price craziness at all. things have been much more chaotic in the past in the middle east, but prices were much more stable.
(Shrug) Who cares? It's still just a term somebody with an agenda made up.
actually it's a fairly good description of the process you would use to determine the lowest possible wage someone can be self sustaining on. That's a useful metric for governments when setting minimum wages, and for employers looking to hire people who are just barely at that level.
That doesn't necessarily apply to Apple stores though, nor is starting salary reflective of average salary, or salary after a year or the like.
If (for sake of argument) the living wage was 20 dollars an hour, and you were paying 10, then you were clearly telling future employees that this isn't a job where you're expected to be independent at early on. You're looking to hire students mostly, or people otherwise fresh out of school looking for whatever until they get something better.
Now as someone above said, the genius bar gig paying 29 an hour is a big step up from a living wage. But your average teller monkey can't do genius bar level work, that might be a training gap, that might be experience, and it might be that training gets you into the genius bar, and then experience will promote you up to that point.
But calculations like living wage are really important. They tell both the government and employers what lifestyle their employees will be in. 24k a year before taxes doesn't get you a whole lot, but what it does get you depends a lot on where you live. Where I am 24K/year would get you your own apartment, public transit to work, and food. You'd really struggle to have enough money to go to school additionally or that sort of thing (car for example), but you at least wouldn't starve to death and could afford internet access to troll /.. You'd just have to have a way out already, because 12 bucks an hour might trap you at equivalent to that rate for life.
If people can't live on the wages they are paid; they will supplement their income in other ways. Whether that be theft/robbery, it will happen. Paying people a "living wage" reduces crime.
actually it's a fairly good description of the process you would use to determine the lowest possible wage someone can be self sustaining on.
There are the usual three things to note here. First, not everyone needs to be self-sustaining. In particular, the teenager living in Mom's basement doesn't need to be. They also need job experience. Living wages leave them unemployed unless they happen to be worth those wages.
LOL Wut? The PCs have been pretty much ahead of the curve compared to Apple on everything but shiny. Frankly intel is pushing Ultrabooks not because Apple made the air, but because the average laptop goes for $400 and they know their new core chips can't be sold on machines with THAT low of a margin which is why they are trying to push a market where they can sell i5s and i7s.
Frankly Apple has NEVER been ahead of the curve, they are a brand, like Prada and Nike. You look at even the machines Apple releases on their refresh and you can get machines that very same day that have MOAR power, MOAR memory, MOAR speed, and cost less. the ONLY thing that sells Apple is the brand, because it'll never be hip to carry a Dell or an HP, that's all.
Not saying their machines aren't pretty, or that OSX doesn't look nice, but that is simply not what gets people to line around the block to buy the new iPhone or iPad on release day when there is not a thing wrong with the iPhone or iPad they have. What gets them to camp like tickets to a rock concert is the fact that its simply not cool to carry last year's iPad anymore than it is to wear last year'd designer fashions. Its status, like Gucci or Prada or Armani, which is fine if you are into that but its not because they are ahead of anything, its because its fashion. Oh and before anybody brings up retina don't bother, you've been able to buy ultra HD screens for years its simply not been something people bought. People buy it now not because they suddenly give a crap about ultra HD on such a small screen, its because that ultra HD comes with an Apple logo. hell i'm shocked they haven't gotten into footwear, they could make $40 sneakers in china and slap the logo on and make $250+ a pair, talk about easy money.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
And yet somehow Australia manages to not be a economic shithole.
To hire someone who's labor cannot justify the "living wage" is to engage in charity and many small business owners cannot afford to be that generous.
if you cannot afford to run your business without slave labor then society should not allow your business to remain open.
Perhaps we ought to fashion a global system of government designed to guarantee useful employ and a humanely-appointed and self-sustaining lifestyle to each and every human being alive, rather than extend the massive self-enrichment scheme of some 200 people (and thousands more aspirants) which we today recognize as the contemporary world's geopolitical organization?
Why can't we--the buliders, architects, drafters, and laborers of the Internet, education, and science, allied with thoughtful and effective politicians, entrepreneurs, and educators--build something better?
Why can't we change the way people think? The way the wealthy and the politically powerful think? Why can't we educate them that to do so is in their best interests as well as the best interests of their fellow humans?
Seriously, people. Let's get on this.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, but having a living wage doesn't exacerbate significantly the problem for young black men, but it does solve many other problems. Australia has a $15+ min. wage, near zero governmental debt, and an economy that runs.
And there isn't a market in the world that is 'free'. At best we have a competitive monopolistic market. I swear, everyone took Intro to Micro and never paid attention to the entire section on why markets fail.
I see two sides to this.
1) People walk into Apple stores to buy Apple products. iPhones literally sell themselves. It's not the guy with the credit card scanner.
So in this regard, the sales staff, while important--aren't terribly unique or important to the transaction except not being bad. And there are plenty of not-bad employees to choose from. So I see no reason to have high wages.
2) The flip side is that as they say an Apple sales person can easily sell $350,000 worth of *PROFIT* per year. Probably gross sales for an Apple retail employee are a fraction of say a Target checker but that's incredibly efficient--so it seems from a one-off perspective a company which makes $350k from someone's labor every year should give him a good cut of that. Instead they just put the profit into the bank.
As to the article in specific. Comparing an Apple Employee to a Tiffany's employee is a bad comparison. Like I said, an iPhone sells itself. A tiffany's employee needs to present a high-end image to the client. A Tiffany sales person needs to compose themselves like as if they too could afford their goods. That means their expenses for wardrobe are higher, they will have a higher demand on their physical appearance and they need to present an image.
A 20 something sales person at Apple though just needs to be a 20 something person who uses a smart phone... which is pretty much every 20 something in existence.
Yes, Intel never even made countless references to the MacBook Air or even the iPad when addressing their Ultrabook design...
For someone accusing another poster of fanboyinsm, don't you think you're oversimplifying things a little too much? Have you actually used a Mac? Yes, you can get the same specs for less, but can you get the same specs with the same kind of build quality, battery life, driver support (on both OS X and Windows), display quality, and overall integration with an entire ecosystem for less on anything else?
My Nokai 3310 was fine, too, until I tossed it away. Does that mean I should have never bought another phone? Regarding retina, can you please name another brand with them on laptops? Can you name another brand with a 326DPI display on their phones? If it's been available before then I'm sure you can!
If you can't figure out why the New York Times considers New York City labour issues to be news
Well probably like the rest of the planet he understands the New York Times is an international newspaper, not a city rag.
And did you post that after the part about them talking about New Hampshire, not New York? Or did you just miss that yourself?
Not a Times reader I guess.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Teenage unemployment is skyrocketing and yet we have some of the lowest minimum wages(adjusted for inflation) the country has seen in its modern history. It's almost like wages have nothing to do with teenage unemployment at this point.
Not entirely true. Ask anybody who used a computer in the late 80s, early 90s, and Apple was way ahead. SCSI on the desktop? Check. A completely USB connected home computer? Check. In fact, it was likely that Apple's early insistence on cutting edge tech is at least part of the reason nobody bought them until Steve Jobs came back. SCSI on the desktop? Who the fuck can afford SCSI on the desktop, and why the hell would I need it? I agree however that with core components (processor, graphics card, etc.) Apple's computers are consistently behind PCs. BUT...Apple isn't really interested in selling computers that run Crysis at 2560x5760 in full 3D, because they learned the hard way that such things only serve a niche market. They build PCs like Black & Decker builds coffee makers. You turn it on, it works. Which is exactly why I'll never own an Apple computer. I don't give a shit about user-friendly or stability. I want to play with the naughty bits. I do think in certain areas they are ahead. I hate Apple to the core, but I can't even argue with the quality of the Apple displays. The original iPod scroll wheel was way ahead of its competition, and maybe touchscreen smartphones were inevitable, but the iPhone made it work before anyone else did.
The penguin made me do it.
>LOL Wut? The PCs have been pretty much ahead of the curve compared to Apple on everything but shiny.
OK, pretty strong statement, let's see your proof.
Hmm. . . the fact that Apple has used x86 technology and software for the past ten years.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
I work for an airline and get free flights, does that mean that airlines ass rape it's customers?
Hint: the answer's no.
Amusingly, this comes from a person who hasn't had to buy an airline ticket in years and gets to bypass getting felt up by TSA officials.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Who said $12/hour was a "living wage"?
And why should Apple pay retail clerks walking the floor a wage designed to support a family of four? Do the clerks add THAT MUCH value to the proposition that they deserve $20-25/hr + benefits?
Should Apple ignore the near inexhaustible supply of willing and able workers that will take the job for $12/hour?
If Apple were to double retail clerk pay ($12 -> $25/hr) do you think Apple would keep the same number of clerks, halve the number of clerks or create more clerk positions? My money is on halving the number of clerks in the store.
Ken
What is the point of working if you are not earning a living wage, seriously, why? Who would you be fooling working eight hours a day five days a week basically pointlessly, can't afford health insurance, can't afford a reasonable place to live, can barely afford to sustain yourself only sufficiently to be able to turn up for work. Why work within that system when logically your only hope of a future is to rebel against it, especially when you see all those cheats, liars and thieves wallowing around at the top of it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Even slaves got (crappy) room and board out of the deal. People making less than a living wage don't even get that. They are probably better off out of work.
If we allow employers to hire people at less than a living wage, we just end up subsidizing their payroll with food stamps. Shall we also help them buy labor saving devices at a discount and pay their power bills for them?
Maybe that's because most PC manufacturers use Apple as an R&D department.
Style is not R & D. There's little question that Apple provides inspiration in the area of style, but their R & D is completely separate from every other company's.
Apple has taken the lead in bringing new technologies (usually developed by others) to the mainstream. Intel deployed USB as a part of their chipsets for years before Apple adopted the technology. When Apple started using USB, the industry followed suit. Apple was the first to make CD-ROM standard equipment in a home computer. Apple was the first major company to standardize on 3.5" floppies and later they were the first to eliminate them.
Apple's track record of bringing new technology to the mainstream is unrivaled, but that is not the same thing as Apple developing these technologies.
Seriously, other than IEEE 1394, what Apple developed standard has gotten mainstream acceptance? I assume that you'll come up with an example or two, but they'll be outliers that I just didn't think of. Not real ground-breaking developments in the IT world.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
> Have you actually used a Mac? Yes, you can get the same specs for less, but can you get the same specs with the same kind of build quality, battery life, driver support (on both OS X and Windows), display quality, and overall integration with an entire ecosystem for less on anything else?
Yes. Owned 2. Mananged to sell them, fortunately.
Again, yes. I currently have a dell XPS 15 with an HD display. The display is better than all MBPs short of the 17" 1920x1200 with matte display. It has a better sound system with integrated subwoofer, and I opted for the 9 cell batter which is giving me 6-7 hours of real-world performance despite the XPS having a quad core SB i7. Build quality? Let's qualify that: Build materials of the case of the MBP are better. Quality and fitment is the same: The XPS is well-built, but has some plastic. Considering the XPS is outfitted like a MBP that is twice the price, I don't care at all.
LOL. It only prevents us from having riots in the streets like in the good ol' days of robber baron capitalism. You know, even rich people understand that if there are too many destitute poor people around them, sooner or later there's going to be a fight, and the poor are numerically superior...
I say fortunately. I do not like aggressive sales staff. Let me play around with said gadgets, and answerf my questions when I ask, otherwise leave me alone to it. Apple stores are really good at that. I do not want used car salesmen in an Apple store.
Who said that one should work only 40 hours per week?