Half of new Apple's US hires in 2018 lacked 4-year college degrees, Cook says
During Wednesday's American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting in Washington, D.C., Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed some 50 percent of the tech giant's U.S. hires lacked a formal four-year college degree, using the figure as a plinth for smart education reform.
The statistic was divulged as part of Cook's introductory remarks, which were aired live on CNBC. Cook, who sat next to President Donald Trump at the meeting, opened the gathering with a brief synopsis of Apple's views on education.
"For our company, as you know, was founded by [a] college dropout, so we never really thought that [a] college degree was the thing you had to have to do well, we always tried to expand our horizons," Cook said. "To that degree, about half of our U.S. employment last year were people that did not have a four-year degree. And we're very proud of that."
Cook did not elaborate on whether the 50 percent figure encompasses both corporate and retail sector hires, but it can be assumed U.S. Apple Store staff are included in the number. Apple owns and operates more than 270 first-party outlets across the country, with employees ranging from sales specialists to managers and Genius Bar staff.
The Apple chief went on to tout the company's educational initiative, saying he believes computer coding skills will be a highly desired asset for future job seekers. In particular, Apple and other tech companies will see an increasing need for talented coders in the coming years, Cook said.
"So to that end, as we've looked at the mismatch between the skills that are coming out of colleges, and what the skills are that we believe we need in the future -- many businesses do -- we've identified coding as a very key one," he said. "We believe very strongly that it should be a requirement in the United States for every kid to have coding before the graduate K-12, and be somewhat proficient at it."
That refrain has been heard many times before, mostly from Cook, as Apple jockeys for a slice of the education market.
Cook detailed Apple's own coding curriculum, Everyone Can Code, which is offered to schools across the U.S. The program has been accepted by 4,000 schools and 80 community colleges, Cook said.
Apple's push into the classroom leans heavily on its proprietary Swift coding language, used to develop apps and software for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. Students are offered specialized learning tools like Swift Playgrounds, as well as dedicated hardware like iPad, Apple Pencil and Apple TV. While Apple's previous educational efforts revolved around Mac, the company over the past few years has concentrated on an iPad-based curriculum, rolling out tools like class management apps Classroom, Schoolwork and the ClassKit API.
The statistic was divulged as part of Cook's introductory remarks, which were aired live on CNBC. Cook, who sat next to President Donald Trump at the meeting, opened the gathering with a brief synopsis of Apple's views on education.
"For our company, as you know, was founded by [a] college dropout, so we never really thought that [a] college degree was the thing you had to have to do well, we always tried to expand our horizons," Cook said. "To that degree, about half of our U.S. employment last year were people that did not have a four-year degree. And we're very proud of that."
Cook did not elaborate on whether the 50 percent figure encompasses both corporate and retail sector hires, but it can be assumed U.S. Apple Store staff are included in the number. Apple owns and operates more than 270 first-party outlets across the country, with employees ranging from sales specialists to managers and Genius Bar staff.
The Apple chief went on to tout the company's educational initiative, saying he believes computer coding skills will be a highly desired asset for future job seekers. In particular, Apple and other tech companies will see an increasing need for talented coders in the coming years, Cook said.
"So to that end, as we've looked at the mismatch between the skills that are coming out of colleges, and what the skills are that we believe we need in the future -- many businesses do -- we've identified coding as a very key one," he said. "We believe very strongly that it should be a requirement in the United States for every kid to have coding before the graduate K-12, and be somewhat proficient at it."
That refrain has been heard many times before, mostly from Cook, as Apple jockeys for a slice of the education market.
Cook detailed Apple's own coding curriculum, Everyone Can Code, which is offered to schools across the U.S. The program has been accepted by 4,000 schools and 80 community colleges, Cook said.
Apple's push into the classroom leans heavily on its proprietary Swift coding language, used to develop apps and software for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. Students are offered specialized learning tools like Swift Playgrounds, as well as dedicated hardware like iPad, Apple Pencil and Apple TV. While Apple's previous educational efforts revolved around Mac, the company over the past few years has concentrated on an iPad-based curriculum, rolling out tools like class management apps Classroom, Schoolwork and the ClassKit API.
Comments
1818 August 4. "The objects of this primary eduction [university education] determine its character and limits. These objects are To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgement; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether privet or public, in them should be taught reading, writing and numerical arithmetic, the elements of mensuration...and the outlines of geography and history." Thomas Jefferson.
Modern Educayshun education
https://youtu.be/iKcWu0tsiZM
steve didn’t code ...
i suspect tim can’t either ...
former apple and newton employee ... who can code (if not particularly well) ...
noticing you can’t appear to even get an epm job at apple any longer without being a coder ...
coding is only a part of what apple does ...
some of the best employees i know coded not at all ...
tim is wrong on this one and i suspect reflects some deeper insight flaw and insecurity ...
Sure, not everyone at Apple needs to code, but Apple anticipates a future shortage, and they think it’s important to address that by having the appropriate education programs.
btw I hope your degree isn’t in psychology, your insight about a “deeper insight flaw and insecurity” seems to be flawed.
Why did you still get a degree if I may ask? You obviously didn't need it anymore.
every kid required ??
no, i still say bs ...
it’s worse than an insight flaw ...
it’s myopic, in poor taste ... and even offensive ...
for one of the nation’s richest and most powerful men to advocate that every kid should be *required* to learn how to program a machine ... and be *somewhat proficient* at it ... because his company and vehicle for personal advancement requires it ...
need i point out that apple strongly prefers that learned language be swift ?
think of all the kids who will hate coding (there are plenty) ...
kids who like it even love it will pick it up easy ... . it’s not like it’s hard or there is a significant barrier to entry ...
i couldn’t care less about apple’s future industry specific labor needs ... nor do i think should public civic institutions i fund with my tax dollars be explicitly subsidizing them ...
there is much more to life than what the world’s largest corporations require of us ... and our kids ... who increasingly need an ‘education’ in the broadest sense ... we need to teach them that and the importance of lifting their eyes and minds away from their screens rather than to *require* them all to *somewhat proficiently* immerse themselves even further in for what is for most a meaningless minutiae ...
‘poison’.... you can keep advocating for tim apple ... there is after all no shortage of people willing to shill for the obvious path ... you fit right in ...
but maybe try to think different dude ... if you can ...
it’s not hard ... no classes required ...
you just gotta like it ... and you’ll pick it up ...
or you won’t ...
A huge part of learning is developing your own approaches and techniques for problem solving. To do this you have to draw upon knowledge from many sources, techniques (like coding, troubleshooting, breaking down difficult problems into resolvable smaller ones), and applying the right mix of skills and knowledge to the problems at hand. In most technical endeavors, and especially those involving complex systems (including natural ones liek the human body), you will absolutely find yourself in a deficit situation and will have to learn and discover more than you currently know to move forward. No matter whether you graduated with a PhD from MIT or from a coding bootcamp, you will constantly be stepping beyond your currently-held core of knowledge and utility belt full of tricks and techniques to solve the next big problem that you are faced with. So to Tim's point, getting people on your team who can constantly make the transition from what they know and can do today to what they know and can do tomorrow is the most essential quality for a new hire.
However, while the ability to constantly learn over one's career is a required quality, there is still is a need for employees who are starting out at many different levels of knowledge and skills. There will always be a core set of knowledge and skills required to start out, for example, as a true engineer (not just an engineer in job title), physician, physicist, financial analyst, accountant, programmer, welder, electronics technician, HVAC mechanic, etc. Whether universities and training programs are optimized to produce people ready to start on the paths that lead to careers in fields that require a constant influx of people just starting out is questionable. A large component of the university system is geared around the profitability and embellishment of their own business and not the improvement of society and serving the greater industrial machine that keeps people employed.
What about all the people with learning disabilities like dyscalculia? Are they also to be required some arbitrary level of “coding ability” in order to graduate?
Ludicrous.
”Tim can code”. Oh? More info, please. The way Apple has been going, I get the impression that decision makers at Apple aren’t even using their product, let alone actually being technical people. They certainly aren’t spending any time editing text in text edit boxes on forums and comment fields in Safari, what with all the usability bugs popping out of every orifice.
But then again maybe that DOES indicate technical people... the kind who don’t care about “every little bug” being fixed any time soon (bugs created by iOS 7; getting worse and not being fixed). Is Tim responsible for the text edit field handling in Safari? :-D
I’m with the group here on not seeing college degrees as necessary. Due to unacknowledged learning disabilities, and the fact that binge & purge is not only bad education but also something I cannot do to perform on testing, school was an abysmal experience for me. I got a certificate in photography and digital imaging, but my advertising design program killed my interests in the arts (never compromise your life direction for someone else’s idea of what’s practical; if you don’t fit in a square slot, don’t subject yourself to it).
No four year degree doesn’t mean I’m anti-intellectual. In fact, I’m plenty targeted for abuse by anti-intellectuals... who graduated college with four-year degrees, and who think having a college-level vocabulary is somehow uncool because “this is Facebook. I graduated college already. I don’t need to talk like I’m still in school”. And no, this was not “just some millennial kid”. This was someone just slightly older than me who went to the same high school. I weep for intellect in this country.
Degrees aren’t important. Knowledge and maturity are. It’s not about test scores. It’s about being willing to seek knowledge, and having a willingness to override your preferred beliefs with demonstrable facts.
College and or Uni degrees are for the insecure, or well funded, otherwise it’s a dead loss investment for most. In the case of Apple, if you are highly intelligent, a degree will not help you, but it opens doors, or so we hope.
More to the point though, I think Tim Apple would have added more value, by offering internships, and as a second phase, creating a curriculum for vocational training at certain schools.
That would add value to the US economy in real terms.
The question though, is how can Apple better serve the American people - if that is what the meeting was all about?
I simplify my view by which is the better option:
1. Owning Apple stock
2. Owning the devices
3. Employed by Apple