[addicted]

Or more relevant to this, Apple wanted to retain the employee that had been working for them for 3-5 years instead of replacing them with a completely new hire because of bureaucratic legalese.

The PERM application was almost certainly submitted for an existing employee, who had most likely been employed with Apple for somewhere between 2-4 years. Thanks to bureaucratic nonsense they were then required to open up that position to outsiders instead, and if they found someone else who could be hired fire the person that had been doing the job well enough that Apple was willing to pick up tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to go ahead with their PERM application.