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Foxconn Invests $210 Million To Build New Production Line For Apple
redletterdave writes "On Monday, Foxconn agreed to invest $210 million to help Apple build out a new production line for 'unspecified components.' The 40,000-square-meter plant plans to hire roughly 35,800 new employees to help assemble parts for either desktop and laptop computers, iPhones, iPads, iPods, or possibly even new products or devices. Apple projects the plant's annual output between $949 million to $1.1 billion, and also estimates the import and export value at roughly $55.8 million."
Why on earth do they need that many people. Aren't these electronics lines automated? (On another note: When was the last time a U.S. or EU company announced hiring 36,000 people.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Don't you get it? The new product will be the technological equivalent of Soylent Green ... a "Soylent brushed metal and glass".
I buy locally (or at least nationally) produced products when possible.
With electronics, that's pretty much NOT possible, with some small exceptions.
At least with Apple, they are making some efforts for transparency, and improvement in the conditions of factory workers. Currently there is NO other major electronics consumer that I have the same degree of assurances from, not within an order of magnitude...
To that end, I have stopped buying NON-Apple products when possible. Normally in the past I bought non-appel wireless routers, because cheap.
But the last time I went looking I bought an Airport because I knew the chances of the people who assembled it being treated better were higher.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In some places people are cheaper than robots.
It's mostly down to the time it takes to design and construct an assembly line for making electronic products. The time it takes to do all that it generally longer than the production run of the device (especially with smartphones). It's much cheaper and simpler to just get a massive manned production line to do it instead.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that ALL the employees will not be present at the SAME TIME.
I would assume the employees are working in multiple shifts, in other words, not all 35,800 are in the building at the same time.
I sometimes wonder what these people will do once the reverse is true.
They aren't all working at the same time. I have no idea what kind of shifts they run, but I would have to assume at least 2, probably 3 or 4 if all the worker protection stuff has actually come to fruition. So you numbers are kind of off.
Huh? Huai'an city is not in Hainan. It's in Jiangsu province, about 100km west of Shanghai. Hainan is an island off the southern coast of China, near Vietnam.
The China Daily article says there are two separate projects. Foxconn is both building this plant in Huai'an and starting up a new manufacturing base down in Hainan. The Hainan facility is not necessarily Apple-oriented.
It's called shifts. Likely 3 of them. An average 3.6 square meters is definitely small (surely less when you subtract equipment) but it isn't 1.2.
I'm sure they know what they're doing. But I do find it interesting that this foxconn plant will employ ten times as many people as all of facebook.com (with 3500 employees). The idea that there could ever be enough "knowledge worker" jobs to replace what manufacturing used to be just doesn't hold up.
If you watched the Foxconn video (or seen any industrial production video), you'd see that for certain types of assembly it's cheaper and easier to get people to do it than to mechanize.
Mechanization requires lots of tooling and is relatively hard to change once built. It's easier to just hire a lot of people and change their procedures when needed.
There's no secret to mass assembly - it's just a serious logistical challenge. Everything needs to be specified, exactly.
There's also some loss of information in TFA. The submitter changed "a plant that covers 40,000 square meters" to "a 40,000 square meters plant". Quite possible there will be more than one floor. A plant with five floors covering 40,000 square meters would be a 200,000 square meter plant.
Why on earth do they need that many people. Aren't these electronics lines automated? (On another note: When was the last time a U.S. or EU company announced hiring 36,000 people.)
- yeah, because Chinese government hasn't yet mandated an entire slew of things that would prevent a company just from trying to build a business and instead would force a company to look for ways to get away from hiring people and find ways to do the same work without any hiring at all.
This is the direct proof that all this government intervention in the USA and Europe etc. is what PREVENTS JOBS FROM HAPPENING and KILLS EXISTING JOBS.
You can't handle the truth.
Yeah, but you don't need to install netting for robots.
They prefer using the suicide booths.
I'll go out on a limb and hazard a guess that this plant is not in the USA and won't provide any jobs in the USA.
Too bad that one of America's top companies outsources most of its production. Their profit margins could support USA jobs.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
It's so that Apple can have their own clean, friendly production facility so that Foxconn can stop disrupting work at their hellhole^H^H^H^slave camp^H^H^H^H^other sweatshops to comply with public inspections by people who'd be outraged by how they NORMALLY do business.
In other words, a facade, like everything else at Apple.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
For example I recently noted that a 24" 1080p monitor from Samsung was "made" in Mexico.
Yes but what are conditions like THERE? I can only imagine the horrors that would be easily hid in Mexico...
But since we lack any visibly into TV manufacturing I suppose possibly Mexican assembly workers may be treated better... it's a pretty large jump to make though, with no facts to back up what is the better choice. I'm limping along with older equipment until I know better (and no, I'm not waiting for Apple to produce a TV, I would have no use for that).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
filled to the brim with honest people with spines like me whose dicks are big enough
Yes, we could tell easily from your first message you were a huge dick. No need to confirm.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Too bad that one of America's top companies outsources most of its production
Well ... there is one very simple way of stop companies from outsourcing anything - work in America while accepting Chinese wages
Are you willing to work in America while receiving wages equal to what the Chinese workers are receiving?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I don't own one single Apple product
And some decide to stay in the gutter. That is your choice, but don't pretend you are better than me because of it.
Why do you think he is pretending he is better than you? The rest of the quote you conveniently left out is
because I don't buy into walled gardens, it's that simple.
It sounds to me like the closed ecosystem doesn't appeal to him. Saying that "some decide to stay in the gutter" sounds like you are pretending that you are better because you purchased a particular brand.
Not everyone here wants to get rid of regulations like minimum wage, OSHA, and environmental laws. Historically corporations here have screwed the environment (and everything else) if they are not regulated. I think things would be different if somehow the CEO was personally liable to some extent for the corporations' actions but I think we can agree that they are not.
Yeah, ALEC and Republicans really want to bring China here, fast. And many Americans don't like it!
Don't be an idiot. The more people we have, the higher the rate of technological advancement will happen. Humans are the ultimate resource. Without people eventually development would stagnate or even reverse itself. It has happened before when there were large population implosions (fall of the Roman Empire, Black Death, etc).
The problem with your argument is thus, Humans are NOT the ultimate resource but SMART humans ARE. the problem is the smart are NOT breeding in any real numbers while the dumb as fuck, barely able to count their change total retards are popping out kids by the pile. Hell didn't you see that story that went around last week about the guy that had THIRTY KIDS and wanted them to cut down his child support because he only makes minimum wage (and frankly always will) even though divided up among that many damned kids they each get on average $1.94 a month?
Sadly what we are seeing is the simple fact that while a comedy Idiocracy is rapidly becoming reality. When you have someone with a 90 IQ frankly education will only go so far, because just as you can't train someone without the genetically gifted muscle type (lack of lactic acid buildup but off the top of my head i can't remember if there is a term for it) to be a world class or even state level sprinter you simply can't turn people with 80 to 90 IQ into rocket scientists, it simply can NOT be done.
Whether you choose to believe it or not frankly a HELL of a lot of the work at the bottom of the ladder in the USA right now is simply "make work" that wouldn't be feasible if the government didn't pay for it by taking it out of your pocket. Walmart even shows a training video on how to apply for food stamps for Pete's sake! Do you HONESTLY think if those government programs disappeared tomorrow it would be cheaper for the stores like Walmart to pay a living wage than to simply automate?
In the end we are playing IQ musical chairs and more and more simply will never get a seat. Most of the minimum wage jobs in the USA could be replaced by machines tomorrow if government programs didn't artificially tilt the favor for humans. Hell you could replace most fast food with automated assembly quite easily, stocking shelves with robots, self checkout lines, hell you could even replace most plumbers and electricians by just using prefabbed homes.
Whether we like it or not the day is RAPIDLY approaching where capitalism, like every other ism before it, will simply fail. If the workers can't trade their labor for capital then how is capitalism gonna survive? We are already seeing the beginnings of it by how so few at the top can control so much of the capital while it becomes ever harder for those at the bottom to rise above anything but poverty because they simply can't get the capital required to advance from labor alone. Did you know you can put the ones that control over 80% of the capitol in your average HS gym and still have seats left over? This is a sign that the system is failing because otherwise those workers killing themselves daily would be able to work their way into that club but the majority just can't.
In the end it just doesn't work friend, you have nearly half a billion people in the USA alone and with just current technology you could get by just fine without any real losses with just 1/5th of that number. Mark my words the next bubble to burst will be the education bubble as millions go into debt they will never be able to pay only to find that the jobs simply don't exist. With robots and computers frankly we just DO NOT NEED all of these people, so short of make work or handouts you are gonna have some major upheavals as all these unneeded people aren't simply gonna wander off and die, they WILL fight back any way they can. But in the end one simply can't escape the simple fact that we have millions more people than we have jobs that need doing.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Apple changed when the spotlight was put on the industry, way before the spotlight was put on Apple.
The thing that really gets me is now that spotlight is only on Apple, not the industry. There is a factor of decreasing gains, Apple can only do so much - meanwhile the rest of the industry laughs and continues to do whatever the hell they like, burning egrets to make bezels or what have you.
That is what is making me angry, that the focus on Apple is a HUGE opportunity cost for cleaning up all other consumer electronic makers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just want to know where he plans on spending his money...You can't build a computer of any kind without parts from Asia. Even all of those companies with the american flags in their ads are just assembling parts from Asia.
For those curious, the best way to help Mexicans out (besides the way I already mentioned and you missed) is of course greatly increased ability to move across borders to work, but failing that the next best way for the individual to help is to support micro loans for people in Mexico, to rebuild the economy from the inside up.
I mention that for the benefit of those who have not replaced their brain with a second misshapen penis, and therefore support enslaving the people of Mexico to make your toaster.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Let me put my cards on the table - I could care less about Apple.
I've been using computers now for more than a quarter of a century and never felt the least bit inclined to buy any Apple product because nothing they've ever made would ever have enhanced my computing experience - and, yes, as a techno-geek I keep abreast of as many new products as I can, Apple or not Apple.
At this moment in time, I use mostly Linux - but even that doesn't do all I need a computer to do which is why I also do a lot of work on Windows - and even have some killer purchased apps on Windows that don't have Open Source equivalents that are anywhere near as good. But that's just the way it is, using a bit of both I can get a computer to do all I need a computer to do.
As such, Apple have no effect on my computing experience, they are entirely irrelevant to me and if other people like and buy their stuff then so be it - knock yourselves out.
But Apple or not, I do have a problem with people who believe that aligning themselves to a logo or brand makes them better than anyone else - if anything, doing so demonstrates a greater need to be with the "in-crowd" rather than buying something based purely on its technical or functional merits.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
I am not unsympathetic to current events in India and China but why are the economic events taking place their now any different to what took place in Europe and the USA around a century ago?
I have Indian colleagues in my work team and even they will fully admit that personal wealth plays a big factor in Indian society and the caste system that still exists there - I suspect the same is true in China where the new rich there are able to use their new wealth to buy properties in London and spend their money in the West.
Wealth is a new thing to many people in Asia and therefore those people haven't yet learnt or focused on some of the consequences of attaining that wealth that we in the West identified decades ago - why do you think we came up with employee unions to fight for workers' rights or made sure that, for example, coal-miners were equipped with protective face masks to restrict coal dust exposure and resultant lung and respiratory problems?
The best people to change poor working conditions in the less developed areas of the world are the people that work in those conditions, simply because that's what everyone else in the West had to do at some point. No corporation is going to ever give anything to anyone away free unless it hits them directly in their profits - and if workers get organised and angry enough to withdraw or restrict their labour en masse, that's when conditions get changed.
If anything, the developing nations now do have an advantage now that the West didn't have then because of organisations like Amnesty International, the United Nations, etc. that exist to bring pressure to bear on bad living or working conditions. But they're not going to do anything unless the workers themselves take their eyes of the money they are earning and want to change it.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.