Who's working at Apple?

The number of employees at Apple rose about 50 percent during the past year, according to the company's 10K report. And a look at Cupertino's job postings boards showed slim pickings.

Todd Bishop at TechFlash pointed to the employment figures in a blog post.

Employment at Apple has risen nearly 50 percent during the past year, according the company's annual 10-K report, filed this morning with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The numbers amount to a boom in employment at the company, although they could raise questions about whether the company might need to cut back if it's ultimately affected by the economic downturn.

The maker of the Mac, iPhone and iPod reports that it had the equivalent 32,000 full-time employees as of the Sept. 27 end of its fiscal year, plus another 3,100 temporary workers, according to this morning's filing. That compares with 21,600 full-timers the previous year, plus 2,100 temporary workers back then. (See last year's filing here.) A year before that, in 2006, the company had a mere 17,787 full-timers and 2,399 temporary workers.

Looking at Apple's job listings, there were few areas posting "hot" jobs, except for Apple Store, iPod engineering, Mac hardware engineering, Software Engineering, and what Apple calls Retail, which are merchandising and training products aimed at the Apple Store and other segment channels.

Here are two jobs at Cupertino that sounded interesting:

Mac Systems Product Architect

The Mac Systems Product Architect is responsible for leading Apple’s next-generation Macintosh product architectures spanning portables to servers. Candidates must have intimate knowledge of leading-edge computer architecture plus possess significant implementation experience to help guide appropriate product decisions. Experience in VLSI, hardware systems, and operating systems is a must, as is the ability to interface well with cross-functional teams internally and externally as future product architectures are defined.

eLearning Architect

Job description: Research eLearning technologies and designs for Apple Retail Training. Create a coherent vision and development plan for eLearning that takes into account the technical and organizational constraints. Innovate, innovate, innovate - in order to achieve measurable learning outcomes that are meaningful to our business. Develop or lead the development of prototypes that can be used to test different approaches. Partner with contractors to integrate prototypes into existing eLearning framework. Manage relationships with vendors if necessary. Lead analysis/prototype sessions with corporate partners and leaders in the field. Lead user review sessions with prototypes. Positive partnering approach. Teamwork: humility, easy to work with, inspires others. Ability to prototype

Benefits look solid.