Apple Retail Stores Laying Off A Huge Amount Of Recent Hires?

Throughout the last few weeks, we've been getting reports of Apple employees being laid off, in particular new employees. Most of these layoffs are from the UK Apple Stores but the occurrence is not completely isolated, with other countries reporting similar. Apple hasn't had great PR with the way it treats employees already - given that the company makes huge revenue, people would expect their employees to share in the benefits. As it turns out, wage wise, Apple isn't such a great employer. The company has tried to fix this with some new salary increases but its not perfect. One report in particular stands out as being incredibly surprising - according to MacRumors.com, all hires in the last six months have been laid off, including a group that had just finished its training and was hired a month ago. Internal company transfers between the stores has been put on hold, along with new hiring. The U.S. and Canada haven't fared much better, with reports indicating that part-time employees are having hours cut as far back as to zero shifts, despite the back-to-school rush.