COMP NEWS – Recently, Apple has been feeling pressure from competitors who are trying to lure employees away from the consumer tech giant. Competition for talent has been coming from other well-established companies as well as high-budget startups.

The race for talent has grown and intensified recently with the emergence of the crypto industry, the metaverse, and web3, the new generation of the internet. In other words, Apple is no longer just in competition with its traditional rivals — Samsung  (SSNLF) , Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc Report, Alphabet (Google) (GOOGL) – Get Alphabet Inc. Class A Report, Meta Platforms  (FB) – Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report, Intel  (INTC) – Get Intel Corporation Report— but now with startups.

To dissuade talent from leaving, Apple has recently decided to reward its engineers with large stock bonuses. These bonuses are set to vest over the next four years, as an encouragement for employees to stick around.

Select hardware and software engineers are expected to get bonuses of up to $200K, which is a rare offering from Apple.

The bonuses will range from $100,000 to $200,000 and will be given in the form of restricted stock units that are set to vest over the course of four years if the employees stay with Apple and do not take jobs at other companies. They could become more valuable over time if Apple’s stock price continues to rise.

This range of bonuses is new in the Apple compensation structure and is representative of the larger war for talent that many companies across industries are facing.

The payouts are not part of normal Apple compensation packages, which include a base salary, a cash bonus, and stock units. Apple sometimes awards additional cash bonuses to its employees, but the size of the latest stock grant was atypical, Bloomberg reported.

To read more about Apple’s Talent Retention, click here.

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