Average Apple salary is only $46k

I worked for Apple off and on for about a decade, "pay" has never been the focus, it's about working there and mingling. I started as contract at 22K, got 26K as an employee, then about 4 years later made 65K! Then it was deemed I was doing too well, and then I was back on the streets. (don't ever do well inside Apple or you will be fired) Keep silent, your head down.

Apple is NOT the place to get rich by working, sure there are a few 1000 employees that make $200K and far more, but the vast majority make $46K on average, so this article seems accurate.

You can't combine HQ and Retail Stores salaries, and then compare that to Goldman Sachs. It's non-sensical.

Another thing to think about: Steve Job's salary: $1/year. Goldman Sach's CEO's salary? probably in excess of $500k/yr base plus bonuses and whatnot. That's gotta skew the numbers a bit.

Everyone seems riveted on the compensation part. What's interesting and perhaps surprising is the corporate level returns. Regardless of how they do it, the employees of Apple deliver more to Apple's shareholders for less pay. The less pay part is pretty self-evident. The higher returns, not so much.

Wow. What a pointless and useless article. I know that retail store employees are not paid well. Employees at Cupertinoare paid well. More retail employees bring the average down.

Thanks captain obvious!

Goldman Sachs is full of money-grubbing crooks. It's funny, the people that taught them everything they know make 1/10th of that on average. I wish I made $46k a year. Maybe I need to apply at apple

Garbage reporting! It's like comparing elephants and hammers. This is a black PR piece with specious logic that tries to make Apple out as a cheapskate with its employees. Kelly Hodgkins, you should be ashamed, then forced to type "I will only report real news in a truthful way that can be easily understood" 5000 times until it sinks in.

Apple is a retail electronics company with thousands of retail employees. Goldman Sachs is a financial company with corporate employees who are in a completely different category from retail. Naturally the wages will be different. Were you just trolling for reaction or do you seriously think this is news? I'm disgusted with this ridiculous comparison.

This analysis is absurd and irrelevant. When journalists venture into other professions they show why they write about but aren't employed in that industry.

Here's why, he's making highly inappropriate comparisons between a manufacture, of consumer goods, and a service company whose customers are largely institutions. Apple's products are it's computers, iphones, software and etc. Goldman's products are its people. If you're product is your people, you damn well better be paying them well. If your product a piece of equipment that sells itself, investing in people to sell it isn't nearly as important.

Moreover, ROA is one measure that, in particular, has very different characteristics for a financial firm vs. a manufacturer. Finance firms must have lots of capital on hand to facilitate customer trades and underwritings. It also has various reserve requirements that mean some of that capital is unproductive from a return generating point of view.

Comparing Apple to Goldman in an attempt to see which is the more profitable and better investment is a meaningless exercise. Compare Apple to Dell and Goldman to Morgan Stanley and you've got something relevant.

I'm a former Apple employee. I worked as Genius for 5 years. Apple USED to pay their employees well, but that stopped about 5 years ago. They used to give the different departments (Genius, Redzone, Creative, BOH, and Mangers) all bonuses every quarter if you hit your metrics. They took that away from every department with the exception of the Managers.

Sad, since a single employee could bonus $875 to $1200 in a quarter! It was nice to get that four times a year.

The way Apple does its reviews is a joke too. They score on a 1-5 scale. your score represents the % of raise you get. So if you scored a 4, you got a 4% raise. No one no matter how bad an employee was, not one got less than a three. So the kicker is that if your great at your job, you get a four, you got a whole one percent more than someone who was lazy and made you work harder.

The saying in retail was the "no one gets a 5", and that was true. For four years I was told that I was the only Genius in my Region that scored a 4.5 out of 5 every year. And my boss fought tooth and nail to get me that.

Third time I seen this study quoted and it is so flawed. Stock brokers make more than factory workers, retail store employees and tech support people! OMG since when!

I am shocked to learn the largest chunk of COGS for a pure service company is labor. We could easily point out that Apple poor's billions of dollars more into their supply chain than GS...The salary impact on the world economy by GS employees is a fleck of dust next to the salary impact of Apple employees on their supply chain, developers, accessorie makers..The list goes on and on.