For me , here's the key paragraph from the article:
"By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount."
Also note that Lululemon is a fairly special case - most people who work there have significant athletic skills in addition to normal sales ability. Sales staff often do stunts like yoga performances in the store window, etc.
(My sister, also a crossfit instructor, was a fairly typical Lululemon employee.)
The idea to convince upper class soccer moms that the only thing preventing her from doing this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loszrEZvS_k is the lack of $85 yoga pants.
Our ideas of pocket money must differ..One company I worked for, allowed you to buy shares at a 15% discount once every six month..and you got the shares at the lowest price point the shares had been at for the previous 6 months.
I bought as many shares as I was allowed to, and I can assure the money I got from that amounted to a hell of a lot more than pocket money for me.
That might be the case in the US, i can assure you nobody outside the US can access those programs today (and even among US employees, last i checked, most were not allowed). Considering the amount of people employed abroad by these two...
For comparison, companies like Oracle and IBM don't offer "the chance to buy company stock" even to senior techies and consultants, nor do they offer any real discount on their own products anymore.
"Employee Plan Account Access
If you hold shares in the IBM Employees Stock Purchase Plan, please use the Employee Plan Members site to access and manage your holdings. ESPP participants will also to able to view and transact on their registered IBM common shares that are not held in the ESPP. Instructions for ESPP login access are on this page."
"By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount."