The bleak life of an Apple 'black site' contractor

Apple logo.
(Image credit: Frédéric VIELCANET / Alamy Stock Photo)

Apple may pride itself on creating an employee-friendly work environment, but a Bloomberg investigation published Monday tells a different story about the company's Hammerwood "black site" facility — one that highlights the complications that come with the tech industry's reliance on freelancers and contract workers.

While the company's shiny, futuristic Cupertino complex provides full-time Apple employees with modern architecture, a café and a 100,000-square-foot fitness center, several anonymous contractors working at the nearby Hammerwood site said that their workplace is defined by a "bland" office space, low wages, understocked vending machines, long bathroom lines, and "dehumanizing" micromanagers. Contractors make up a large swath of Apple's workforce, though companies are not required to disclose any official count.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.