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Apple's Top Assembler Foxconn Confirms Plans for US Investment, To Create 50,000 Jobs (bloomberg.com)
Foxconn, the biggest assembler of Apple devices, is in preliminary discussions to make an investment that would expand the company's U.S. operations. From a report on Bloomberg: The disclosure came hours after an announcement by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and SoftBank Group's Masayoshi Son to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 jobs. The money will come from SoftBank's $100 billion technology fund, which was announced in October, a person familiar with the matter said. A document that Son held up after the meeting in Trump Tower also included the words "Foxconn," "$7 billion" and "50,000 new jobs" in addition to SoftBank's numbers. "While the scope of the potential investment has not been determined, we will announce the details of any plans following the completion of direct discussions between our leadership and the relevant U.S. officials," Foxconn said in a statement. "Those plans would be made based on mutually-agreed terms."
Only fair.
Of course the jobs will almost all be staffed by employment agencies that hire only H1-B and H2-B workers, but we can still claim we created jobs!
Finally with an entrepeneur taking the reins we may be staring down a new golden age for America... withtout all the BS and fake numbers spewed by the recent federal government regimes. Unemployment at less than 5%? Puh-leeze. I guess maybe if you count crap work and part time jobs with no benefits. Trump is going to take the world by the balls and basically start squeezing and say "stop fucking us over OR ELSE. Now would you like to talk?"
I suppose this doesn't have anything to do with current regulators blocking of Spint's merger with T-Mobile. Softbank president Son owns Sprint, so perhaps he's looking for a little favor when Trump assigns new folks over at the FCC.
"And in other news, Apple announced that their next iPhone is expected to retail for around $7000."
God, it's going to be an awfully big sales and marketing department.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
50000 workers, at $25000 is 1.2 billion per year.
These 'factories' are not going to be using employees at $10/hr to assemble PCBs.
I note a story earlier this year "One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post. ".
Most of the putative 50000 jobs are going to be construction work building the factories.
The factories are then going to be - if not totally lights-out - reducing employees to the bare minimum.
If you're building a new factory in the USA, and contemplating employing workers at $10/hr for 5 years (three shifts), that's $500K per station or so (probably more costing all costs of employees.
If you have even 100 employees constantly doing a very similar job, you can easily afford to spend 5 million developing a custom robotic solution, and deploying it for another $5m ($50K/station), and come very considerably out in front.
($10/h*24h*365*5 = 438k. Employers taxes and obligations add to this comfortably exceeding the 500k figure for three shifts)
It's easy to create 50,000 jobs if you don't have to pay them well or hire locally. When those 50,000 seats are all filled by domestic workers making at least market rate, then it is time to call it a good job.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
From China or from India. Doesn't matter as long as they are not native speakers of English.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
That's a million dollars a job. Seems like a lot.
Time to build the wall, then start deporting. Deport to Africa as well, Chicago has 700+ murders this year alone.
All that pesky workers rights stuff can be easily brushed away by foxconn buying up a facility (or expanding it) and then having it reclassified as an embassy. Problem solved,.. cheap American slave labor and no emancipation act to worry about.
So, 50 billion to create 50 thousand jobs is 1 million dollars per job created.
That doesn't seem like a good investment.
They will be part time casual labor jobs.
Ie: assembler " put this into the box, tape the box, and put the sticker on it"
Technician: Verify that the sticker is put on correctly
Technologist: Verify that the unit turns on before it's put into the box.
Engineer: Verify that there are no screws missing, put the battery inside the finished unit.
Most of these jobs will cater to the High School or GED educated crowd. Give a person a fancy title and they will work for peanuts.
Bullshit. 50,000 jobs? To save shipping costs for small electronic products? Bullshit. This is another Trump lie.
I don't respond to AC's.
Why should animals be prevented from freely migrating? Walls violate natural, unalienable rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Yeah. Right.
Right after the Rethugs find Bin Laden and those WMD.
Fuck Trump and every asshole idiot that voted for him.
I'll bet this is a move to do final packaging here in the U.S. This means they can ship more units cheaper from overseas. The job quote will include temporary jobs to design, build, and run a final packaging factory. If you think about how big an iPhone or iPad box is they can easily ship three to four units in the same space even when loaded with some packaging to protect during shipping.
Them there's the weasel words.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
It's like Trump really does have that magic wand Obama talked about.
So shifting jobs to low wage countries has come a full circle.
bickerdyke
In a global economy, the balls your holding are often your own. It's great that manufacturing will be coming back to the US, but are Americans willing to pay 50%-100% more for their electronics? That's what Foxconn said it would cost if a assembly occurred in the US as US wages. Now, if you can believe Trump, they would be slapped with a 35% tariff if it was manufactered outside the US...but Apple and Samsung and the like are not going to be passing on that tariff to the consumer, with an appropriate mark up.
Americans will pay a higher price for moving jobs into the US or pay a higher price (with money going into Federal Government coffers to be spent on wasteful programs) in their attempts to penalize foreign corporations. And the likely outcome of the latter will be retaliatory tariffs on American goods, causing companies in the US who sell to other countries to lose their competitive edge.
All I can say is - be careful how hard you want Trump to squeeze, because you may not know you're the one who's balls he's holding until its too late.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Cool. So Foxconn or whatever brand it renames itself will operate two lines: one in China and another (1/10th in capacity) in the USA. World gets Chinese phones at ~550€ a pop, USA gets red/white/blue USA phones at >$1700, with $250 of that going into the Trump Family Perpetual Reelection Fund. Everybody happy, universe saved, undesirables served. After all, sales channels, warranties, service outlets and the like are already not international so little adjustments need be made.
iphone will still be made in China. Its a huge dongle factory they are making in the US.
Given the company's uncanny ability to make their workers kill themselves, I wonder how many of these 50,000 jobs will get added to this Wikipedia article...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I'm not tired of winning yet.
with all the locking of doors and tightening of regulations, favoring of U.S.-owned businesses, it's risky to invest that much money in the U.S. instead of your own country. They will literally own your manufacturing and infrastructure, and you PAY them for it.
Create those jobs and manufacturing means in your own country, and sell to the U.S. instead, or this $100B technology fund will become a money sink for you, and free money for the U.S.
First, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple wasn't involved in this from inception on the grounds that rival companies have been copying Apple within weeks of a new product release if not before. Ergo, Foxconn in China must be the leakiest place on the planet. China is also one of the worst places for intellectual property rights. So, by manufacturing in the U.S., Apple might be able to maintain control over the IP. Maybe.
Second, with regards to people laughing when Trump initially said that Apple would be making product in country, given his deep business experience, he likely knew this was going to happen early on. Good business people know things before everyone else does.
Why should USC be pushed out of work by Mexicans working under the table with little to no employment taxes, no workers comp (just show up at the ER and don't pay)
China is now moving manufacturing jobs to America to exploit the cheap labor force? Congratulations! America's has now secured it's spot as an official third world country, complete with strongman dictator, tribal/racial unrest, poor public education and non-existent public healthcare. I fully expect an outbreak of malaria any day now.
Great. Now American workers can be driven to suicide too.
Fuck Trump
The main benefit of using robotics is that FoxConn would save all sorts of money on suicide nets!
Queue the news story about Trump taking credit for this project that has been in the works for well over a year now.
The Mind Is Speculative and Interpretive. So speculate all you want and interpret this 00101101 01001110!
Most apps are written in high-level languages: Java, Objectionable-C, etc.
70 million? 700 million? How many US firms is this displacing, this time? How many US employees is this indirectly putting out of work? Simple answer: More than the gain, because that is part of the definition of inefficiency and is what happens when political policy drives against real economic development.
But who's gonna be making the nets to be used to catch people jumping from the windows?
more crony business that won't last
"About the only person, it seems, who disagrees is Bannon himself. "When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think..." he replied before trailing off. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."
is the quote cited here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/17/donald-trumps-chief-strategist-doesnt-understand-what-makes-america-great/?utm_term=.237be1d37196
Right now how much does the government get in taxes from a factory that does not exist?
$0
After the factory is built, let's say the government gets just $1 a year in taxes from the factory. How is that not still better than today? And of course we know the company will be paying more that that...
If tax breaks mean the factory, and the jobs to build it, and the jobs to maintain it, and the jobs created by shipping material in and products out, gets built how is that not inherently better no matter what "tax breaks" are given?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Give everyone a basic income. Making life harder for animals is not the answer to man-made problems. The Border Patrol in Arizona harasses me daily when I am down in the desert. I am far more scared of the Border Patrol than of the few illegals who are polite and demonstrate great physical endurance crossing the desert on foot. Border Patrol is symptomatic of a police state. If Sessions directs them, they will throw me in jail for legal weed.
Because it disrupts the competitive market
How doe s factory " disrupt the competitive market" in a market where most factories are winding down or closing? Where much factory and construction labor sits idle?
increasing costs for every other party
Are you writing this out of a fifty year old textbook or something? Give a concrete example of people who's costs increase when an Apple assembly factory is built in the U.S. Are you saying you are worried iPhone or Mac purchasers are going to have to pay a bit more?
It disrupts the revenue of better managed companies that are not reliant on tax breaks
SLAP. Back to reality, this is a FACTORY. It's not building anything that "better managed companies" are selling because there is no U.S. competition for Apple at this point... are you worried abut the "better managed company" Samsung???
An Apple factory would mean no less in taxes being paid by other companies and would mean more government revenue from Apple, along with many, many more jobs (some permanent). You have to be eight shades of crazy to look at that and not be pleased.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They can't afford to ramp up production.
They already did that which brought oil prices crashing down and big headaches for all non-US oil producers. The world is still in an oil glut.
Look at Venezuela or Saudi Arabia's current bank balance over the last 5 years.
We win when oil goes down. Pray it happens if you love America and Europe.
Car makers have been doing this for years. Manufacturers like Honda and BMW have plants to build cars for the domestic market. It make good business and political sense.....
love is just extroverted narcissism
Very pleased TFA does NOT tell us who to give credit for on this.
I think Mr. average reader will figure it out.
Bothered me a lot when I went to news.yahoo.com during a major stock dip and the headline was "This isn't Obama's fault." So I only learned what the news was after reading past the editorial headline. I'm kind of pleased to see these opinion pushers disguised as news companies sink and fail.
would be enough.
Will the $50 billion include suicide nets, or will the taxpayers be on the hook for those?
Maybe Foxconn wants to bend metal for Apple stateside
This is what happens when you act like a sovereign nation.
That's right, our factory output is currently almost identical to 2008 levels (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS), yet our factory employment is still way down.
Our factory jobs have been given over to automation and increased productivity within our own country.
Your "legal" weed is still federally unlawful, moron. They have every right and obligation to throw you in jail for (possibly running) drugs, dipshit.
herp derp.
all figured out .
urdog2me.
herp.
derp.
In other news, FoxConn has petitioned the US State Department for 50,000 L-1 manager visas to overseas "managers" to come over and get the factory started. Foxconn says the process may take 30 years or more, during which time it may need to rotate through foreign managers on a continuous basis.
Perfectly legal to do this, btw...
For the whole bring jobs back idea, honestly, it doesn't sound like a bad thing... of all the alternatives, this one sounds the most sensible I guess.
Trump would never be able to force Apple (and other electronics companies) to bring all the manufacturing currently done in places like Shenzhen to the US... that would not only require absurd ammounts of taxation plus building up from scratch entire cities worth of infrastructure, you'd also need to close deals with a whole bunch of third party manufacturers to make it happen at absurd costs.
An iPhone - as well as several other smartphones, tablets, laptops and whatnot - is nothing more than a huge assembly of parts from different brands on the hardware side. It works in China and has to happen there because manufacturing of all these third party parts happen closeby.
The best case scenario I can see for companies like Apple bringing back a few jobs to the US would be by closing some sort of deal for them to build assembly centers in the US. Parts would still have to be shipped from China, and this will still come with a huge overhead in production costs, but for a company the size of Apple it could probably still be done.
It isn't a great move in a general sense though. It'll make Apple products more expensive, lots of overhead costs with no advantages (other than the job openings), costumers will definitely pay for this, and it doesn't make any sense from a business standpoint. And the whole thing will make less sense for tech companies that don't operate like Apple - don't have a cult following, charges closer to manufacturing costs, etc.
You see, Brazil has similar type operations. We have importation taxes here that can get up to 120% the original product costs. It's dumb protectionism. What the brazilian government did over the years was closing deals with electronics companies to bring some assembly factories into the country. It didn't really work. Electronics "made in Brazil" got shit reputation because it has always been outdated and more shoddily made than chinese counterparts. Tons of brazilian brands went bankrupt and lives in the margin being equated with generic no name chinese brands. They end up being as expensive as foreign products because of overhead costs to import all parts necessary, keep wages at the national minimum, among other stuff.
It's just how the economy of electronics works these days. Specially for devices like smartphones and tablets, your assembly line needs to be close to where components are being made. This allows for a quick revision and upgrade turnaround. If you take assembly factories to the other side of the world, the upgrade cycle of several lines of products will have to change.
Like I said though, this is probably the most sensible choice among several others to bring some of the jobs back to the US. Foxconn will just open a token symbolic factory in the US while keeping most of it's manufacturing still in China, Apple will deal with the extra costs, and the end consumer will pay the price. Apple also already handles well not having the latest and greatest specs since it controls hardware and software by itself, and their price point is flexible enough already.
Here, mod this down, too. I need to take away your modpoints before you use them to hurt someone who won't get another shitload of upmods plenty soon enough.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When a country runs a trade deficit, it receives foreign currency, which is useless in another country. To be of value, these foreign reserves must be invested back into the country running a trade deficit.
The first suicide nets on a building in the U.S. Will the nets be for Humans or the Robots? Enjoy your new Iphone either way.
Not so much having the world's balls in his hands as having Putin's member in his mouth.
and it was negotiated BY OBAMA, not Trump, is something needing to be mentioned.
Yes, let's deport the Orange one back to Germany.
Dumbass. The list of comparison items YOU PROVIDED to be held up against Britain aren't in Europe. English, being the same in UK & the US, does not always reference itself in an order from left to right. Sometimes sentences may reference a phrase 3 paragraphs back, or even *gasp* things not written yet! We had already determined 2 posts up that Britain was in Europe. Why are you still kicking the dead horse? Oh, because you have no other valid retort. A valid retort would have made some kind of observation about how the US, Canada, or Australia don't share 99.9% of the same culture as Great Britain. You could have also reinforced the statement by providing examples of how the US, Canada, or Australia do share 99.9% of culture with Great Britain. You could have also made the claim that you know nothing about how the cultures of the US, Canada, and Australia share or don't share 99.9% of the same things as Great Britain. Finally, you could have said exactly nothing and went about your day. You didn't do any of those four reasonable things. You went straight to a character attack because you got called out for being a dumbass and you can't help it. I'm glad you've really taken an interest in this entire thread though. I knew I originally didn't like you, but now I know you to be a 100% white supremacist. Sure maybe you aren't out burning crosses in yards (do you do that in Britain?) but I can definitely tell by all the statements that you've made that you completely subscribe to the "If it ain't white, it ain't right" school of thought. And to support that statement, I refer you to your first reply to the original AC. They stated that "European culture" is a dog whistle used to call in other racists. Well I'll be damned if you weren't the first dog barking! And barking angrily too as racists are wont to do...
Japanese and Taiwanese companies are basically scared of American companies like Apple coming under pressure to produce locally and employ locals and so these companies will try and move to the US. Im not sire its the best long term strategy for the US. Its better to slowly move towards protectionism as these countries do and habe American manufacturing companies produce American products in America employing only Americans. But its a step in the right direction.