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Foxconn Considers $7 Billion Screen Factory In US, Which Could Create Up To 50,000 Jobs (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturing company best known for its partnership with Apple, has said that it is mulling a $7 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing that could create between 30,000 and 50,000 jobs. According to The Wall Street Journal, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou says the company is talking with the state of Pennsylvania among others about getting the land and electricity subsidies it would need to build a factory. "If U.S. state governments are willing to provide these terms, and we calculate and it is cheaper than shipping from China or Japan, then why wouldn't Sharp build a factory in the U.S.?" said Gou. The factory would build flat-panel screens under the Sharp name -- Foxconn bought Sharp around this time last year for $5.1 billion. Sharp President Tai Jeng-wu hinted in October of 2016 that U.S. manufacturing could be a possibility for Sharp, and he also indicated that Apple could begin using OLED display panels in future iPhones. Apple currently uses OLED in the Apple Watch and in the new MacBook Pro's Touch Bar, but otherwise it hasn't pushed to adopt the technology as some Android phone manufacturers have.
being successful.
Trump! Trump! Trump!
I worry with all the changes over the last year that something is going to give. I'd prefer Japan keep control. Although jobs for the US is a super nice thing for us.
Sad to see the Trump MAGA's once again fooled by companies recycling old press releases.
Don't catch me, bro, I wanna die!!
I used to think conservatives were against welfare.
I'm suspicious. I can't wait to divide the total $ in subsidies by the number of workers. that's how much tax payer money will be used to "buy" these jobs.
No way flat screen manufacture is going to create 50k permanent jobs.
"the company is talking with the state of Pennsylvania among others about getting the land and electricity subsidies it would need to build a factory"
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm the first :-)
I wish these numbers were better broken down.
How many construction workers are going to get jobs building the factory?
How many jobs are going to be people on the line doing line work?
How many jobs are going to be people in control booths running the massive machines cranking out screens?
Also, unless you're going to also be building a phone factory here as well, it seems a bit short sighted to make the screens here, but the cpu's in China or Korea and the bodies who knows where? China?
Until I see a bulldozer breaking ground I think Foxconn is just blowing smoke up JDT's ass.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
*considers* and *could* are not the same as *is and *will*
is talking with the state of Pennsylvania among others about getting the land and electricity subsidies
I'm sure with Pennsylvania's current $600 million budget deficit the folks in Harrisburg will be more than willing to hand over tens of millions of dollars in subsidies with a payback timeframe of decades.
Who wouldn't?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Like a comedian said lately "I need a job to get decent money, not to be occupied. I can keep myself busy all by myself just fine".
Are those jobs paying enough to live off them?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They can seal the deal by offering the use of their parking lot for Uber drivers.
One shift at Foxconn. One shift at Uber. One shift sleeping in the parking lot.
Let's see... New factory to build displays in the US, but all the phone and computer manufacturing is where the existing factories are in SE Asia... Not very economically smart.
Apple doesn't build computers here, so why would they source screens here, ship them to China, then bring back the finished product? Or is Foxconn also planning an assembly plant here, where the display-less iPhones are assembled here?
It's about time that the Chinese multinational's took advantage of all the low cost American labor available this side of the pond.
Will it have suicide nets?
That is more like it goes. Even if many companies currently are trying to suck up to Trump, they actually have no intentions to follow-through.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If Foxconn executives have a clue on how to run a business, they have considered total costs and risks. Six months ago, there was a big question mark: there was a 70% chance that it was about to become more difficult and expensive to operate in the US, because the "fuck corporations, tax and regulate them to death!" party was likely to take control of the legislative and regulatory machinery. That would mean they could expect costs and time frames to increase. There was a 30% chance that the more business-friendly party would take power, with a president focused on making it easier to produce things in the US. Unless the Foxconn executives are idiots, six ago they were saying "let's wait until at least November to make a definite decision".
A few years ago, Obama's own radio ads had him promising to "go after corporations". Hillary promised to "put a lot of companies out of business". Foxconn can hear those promises.
The election of Trump and Republican control of Congress, along with Trump's actions since the election show companies, including Foxconn, that the US wants jobs here, and we're not going try to "put a lot of people out of business". That has to influence their decision, if they are competent executives. Given Foxconn's success, it appears that Foxconn executives are in fact competent, they do have a clue - so they pay attention to the political and regulatory trends before committing $7 billion.
I'd like to know who injected the "could" in could create 50,000 jobs. Because they "could" also be automated by then and that may be what Foxconn has in mind. More expensive to have labor close to the market, but much cheaper to have automated manufacturing closer to the market.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
In case anyone was wondering, shipping costs have NEARLY NOTHING to do with this.
The Ocean Freight industry - particularly Trans-Pacific East-Bound (ie China to US) has had long term overcapacity issues for a decade, Depending on who you're talking to, essentially for every $100 they make, the industry has been spending $105-$110 for more than a handful of years.
It got to a point that last year, you could ship a truckload of cargo from Hong Kong to Brazil port to port for $50.
https://www.flexport.com/blog/...
They're not quite that bad anymore but still, you can ship a truckload from China to Los Angeles cheaper than the cost of delivering that load from the port to a point in Metro Los Angeles.
-Styopa
You are planning to invest huge sums in building infrastructure and manufacturing capability in a country that considers you the enemy. Why would you build there? Create your manufacturing plants and work opportunities at home instead.
Lol.
Keep dreaming.
This factory will be 90+% automated.
At most it will be 500 jobs for people with 4 year degrees.
Their goal is to automate all jobs in current chinese factories Any new factories are going to get state-of-the-art automation from the very beginning.
This is the face of trump's america — massive tax breaks and deregulation for robots.
Or is Foxconn also planning an assembly plant here, where the display-less iPhones are assembled here?
Aren't the iPhone (or was it other smartphones?) already "proudly assembled in the USA" (for a very liberal definition of assembled: mostly connect the battery and close the case - none of the pesky soldering of surface-mounted component, that one goes in Asia) just for the sake of giving an impression of locally manufactured good ?
with the "assembled... " indication being the second best marketing buzzword after the unobtainable "made in the USA"
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
seriously 50000 jobs! what the hell are you smoking?
looking at foxcon, maybe a couple hundred for construction, maybe a couple hundred for setting up assembly lines and ROBOTs (aka automation), maybe a couple hundred for design, but at the most I'd hazard a guess of no more than 5000 jobs total. that is about as far as I could possibly stretch that and still get a good nights sleep!
I don't think American's will enjoy sleeping at their workstations. http://www.technobuffalo.com/w...
I'm not tired of all this winning!
OLED screens tend to burn in.
They do however look excellent! For a while.
Feel the bern...or is that burn? I'm still a little confused from the election.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Free money for the shareholders aka "land and electricity subsidies".
Just you wait, in about two years, about 70% of liberals will tell you they in fact secretly voted for Trump, and it's the racists/russians that gave Killary her 65 million votes.
If manufacturing jobs inherently made countries great (at all), then China and southeast Asia would be The Best. What made America great during the golden years of blue-collar workers wasn't manufacturing per-se, it was in finding productive use of a workforce which happened to be manufacturing at the time. Today, the economy is more focused on services than products[1], and we should be focusing on how to expand service jobs rather than easily outsourced and automated manufacturing jobs.
By the way, unemployment is below 5%[2], which is quite healthy. More important than jobs is that wages for all jobs are above a subsistence level so that people actually have discretionary funds at the end of the day. We don't necessarily need more jobs (although there's nothing wrong with having them), but we *do* need better wages. Adding jobs (and demand for labor) is one way of achieving that, but it's not the only way. Minimum wage is another. Capping CEO and executive total compensation as a multiple of company-average pay is another. And for what it's worth, I'm not someone who needs better wages, but I recognize that it's important nonetheless.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com...
[2] https://data.bls.gov/timeserie...
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Trump or not, it's sure good to see at least some jobs moving in the other direction for once.
According to the Reshoring Initiative, about 41,000 jobs have been returning to the US per year for the last six years. This does not even count jobs that were planned to leave but reconsidered (like Carrier) or jobs created from foreign investment (like FoxConn).
As automation becomes more capable and wages in other countries increase, it just makes sense that jobs would start to return. Unfortunately for the rust belt the jobs which return are often not the same low skill work which was off-shored over the past few decades.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
How terrible the government is going to do something for WORKERS. This is an outrage. Everyone knows the government only punishes workers and rewards those who don't work. How DARE these people attempt to take care of themselves and their families without depending on EBT cards.
This is truly the worst story I've seen in months. Everyone knows the government is never supposed to help people who choose to work for a living.
lols
The same company than made the news for automating away 60,000 jobs in a single plant because even though the jobs only paid between $1.60 and $2.20 an hour it was still cheaper to remove the jobs anyways.
And we are talking about THAT company and creating 50,000 at American wages in an industry that can be so automated away that it is virtually unmanned?
Get the fuck out of here with that noise.....
At best you would see them create 50,000 temporary jobs building the plant and setting up the automation as quickly as possible before letting them go and letting this virtually unmanned machine loose and probably getting the tax payers to spread their butts to give them tax cuts like Trump is proposing and did with Carrier.
But this company actually creating that many permanent jobs at even minimum wage in the US in this market? I have a better chance getting a 3-some with Jessica Alba and Hayden Panettiere.
How much does it cost to ship items like phone screens from Japan? It's a tiny amount.
but we *do* need better wages.
Last year, wages hit their highest level ever (even after adjusting for inflation). Just sayin'
If a company in Taiwan is deciding to locate a factory somewhere other than the island, it might well be fair to attribute that to Trump.
Trump's abandonment of the One-China policy virtually guarantees that China will take Taiwan by force. Several days ago a Chinese general said it would take less than 100 hours. That gives Taiwanese companies a strong motive to locate their manufacturing facilities overseas.
Conveniently you left Germany out, not to mention Japan really goes against the grain of your point. Personally I think a country is strongest when they don't have all their eggs in one basket and have solid segments in every segment of the economy. A country structured this way will be much more resilient to economic disruptions and will make the most of the human capital within.
love is just extroverted narcissism
When workers at the factory hurl themselves off the roof of the factory, killing themselves, unable to endure the slavery-like working conditions within, is each additional job that opens as a result counted as part of the original total or is it returned to the pool of originally created jobs?
they did it in brazil. it created a handful of low-skill, low wage jobs at a huge expense to the state. brazil is not happy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-brazil-apple-insight-idUSKBN0N40CP20150413
And if the government, would stop taxing business (because business don't "pay" taxes...they pass it along to consumers), it would make it easier to do business in the USA. Get rid of some of the stupidity that caused companies to flee the USA and maybe some will come back.
3% rise in 35 years, or an amazing 0.1% a year. This while the US adjusted GDP has grown by 4.3% annually - 43x faster than wages. That $10 trillion extra annual revenue clearly hasn't gone to the people actually doing the work.
It's not job creation of the tax payers have to subsidize it.
That's all true and fucked up. No question they could do better.
But the point is that, even accounting for inflation, wages have not done as badly as all the political rhetoric would lead you to believe.
If we ended all taxes tomorrow every employed person would have twice as money money to spend. The thing is the majority of poor people actually do contribute more to the economy than what they've taken. It's the hidden taxes that are hurting the poor. When a property owners property taxes are insane they pass those costs onto the renters. So even someone whose not a property owner is in fact paying significantly in taxes. The same applies to all sorts of registration taxes, fees, licenses, sales taxes, prepared food taxes, import taxes, and a lot more. There are so many hidden taxes and governmental fees (including court fees, from BS arrests that target poor/minorities, etc) that if we eliminated them all the poor would be much much better off.
We're going to get there in New Hampshire- explicitly because of the migration of active liberty minded people to New Hampshire and a population which is well suited and naturally prone to vote other if the people are given the chance (neither democrats nor republicans own the state, it's mostly independents). Thanks to various organizations and entities including Free Talk Live, the Shire Society, the Free State Project, and thousands of activists who have already moved that are making this happen. The libertarian party is going to be on the ballet in spite of the republican/democratic parties stifling third parties for the first time in 20 years. That's only possible because of the increasing number of liberty-minded people here. Because of that we've gotten votes up to a point to overcome the increasing barriers the republicans/democrats put in the way to keep out third parties. You don't need a majority- you need your active minority to outnumber their active minority. Remember most people aren't active in politics and most people don't even vote. You can influence the primaries and lower down to impact change both at the state and local levels.
http://www.freestateproject.org/ the Free State Project
http:/www.shiresociety.com/ a fork of the Free State Project for those who may not think the Free State Party is principled enough
http://www.freekeene.com/ liberty news in New Hampshire from civil disobedience to whose getting elected
http://porcfest.com/ summer camping festival (motel on the camp ground too) with parties, speakers, and a lot of fun
http://www.nhlibertyforum.com - Feb 2nd-4th is the Free State Project's yearly conference and free market bizarre where guys like Edward Snowden, pirate party founders, technical people, and others who love liberty attend
Dude, you are a moron, try this nice liberal publication to see that wages are flat while the cost to do basic important things like go to college has doubled since 1987. Wages may have had a little bump last year, but guess what so did the cost of health care, college, property taxes, insurance etc....
Look at the pretty graph.
The kids today are getting totally screwed. No pensions, crappy high-fee 401Ks, crappy insurance, crushing college debt, and are stuck in a service economy because their parents generation free-traded all the manufacturing jobs away allowing new-economy jobs to be offshored and/or replaced with H1-B's.
I realize we can never go back, but your one year of statistics is meaningless over the long term trend.
Please someone mod this parent into the basement.
High value products do no use container ships. Companies like Apple buy shipping capacity and go UPS/FedEx Air. Container ships are for big stuff, heavy stuff, or mass made in China junk.
You need to read this article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some diversity is good but specializing is much more important.
Get a clue. Anyone can cherry pick high cost items and ignore the ones that have gotten cheaper.
Food is cheaper
Clothing is cheaper
Furniture is cheaper
Electronics are cheaper
Gas is cheaper
After adjusting for inflation all the day-in-day out stuff is cheaper.
It's about politics. There's a big part of the left, not the majority thank God, that are _expecting_ the economy will crash.../p>
Seriously, do you really think that policies like
1. More unfunded tax cuts.
2. Greater defense spending.
3. General mess due to threats and actual trade wars.
4. Policies based on anything but facts.
5. General protectionist mess. You might be able to increase employment, but it will be less efficient employment. Costs will go up for many goods and services. I'm less than certain we can "win" this, save in the very short term.
6. External costs on society due to pollution and global warming.
7. Greater civil unrest. You don't win on hate and expect everyone to love you. The hate that was born this election is not going to die so easily. His first act was to call almost all mexicans rapists and murderers and he hasn't improved.
8. Greater terrorism. Sure some actions might smack some down, but Trump is a walking talking recruitment poster for some of them.
9. Greater health care costs being a drag on society. I get how people don't wanna buy it, but well, they want treated when they have an emergency. Choose. Either be able to afford the treatment such as with insurance, or let people die when they get sick. Obamacare needs to increase the fine so everyone signs up. That, and maybe incentivising outcome based outcomes and the state line thing might be all that is needed. (The state line thing sort of works because Obamacare established minimums. If you remove those, then removing the state line barrier would be crazy.)
At any rate, I see no reason to believe that Trump will lead to long term growth. Short term irrational exuberance is possible I suppose, but sustained long term growth is unlikely. You can't optimize a system if you refuse to believe that there is such a thing as truth.
The higher you raise minimum wage the more you hasten automation at this point.
By the way, unemployment is below 5%[2], which is quite healthy.
Even U6 is below 10%, which is worth mentioning.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
See subject: Believe it or not? We agree on MANY things - this IS one of them!
APK
P.S.=> Just had to mention that... apk
How the hell does Foxconn claim 30 to 50,000 jobs?
Any panel factory like the propose would be very highly automated and probably only involve humans at the edges of production: loading in raw materials and then final assembly and shipping. All the fabrication would almost certainly be done by robots.
So unless they plan to build a factory the size of a city -with product demand that does not exist- there is no way they will need more than a few hundred workers. Maybe a thousand.
I think Foxconn may be thinking of how they DO run plants in China, which is to hire a lot of cheap labor to do everything. Need it done faster, no problem, plenty of job seekers lined up every morning. But nobody in the US runs plants like that.
That said, I don't think the economics work anyway. Chinese companies keep lowering the bottom line on panel cost and consumer demand has largely eased as nearly everyone who wanted a flat TV has gotten one or more. Prices for 32" TVs are now approaching $100 at retail. There just isn't going to be a lot of profit in something like that shipped from China. A US-made version would have to be no more expensive or else nobody will want it. And there definitely would not be much profit in it.
Sig for hire.
The state ends up taking on the additional burden of transportation infrastructure and improvement, schools for the employees children, etc. ( http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/pr... ), environmental impacts, on and on. So when a state 'forgives' taxes, it is just pushing it onto the existing residents. In the immediate area of the plant(s) people can be priced out of housing by increased competition. Even the labor force is usually imported during the construction phase from other places. Pretty much the same deal as with sports arenas, nationwide it ends up being a race to the bottom.
suicide nets like their Chinese factory does ?
And will they be Trump-branded ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Yep, 50,000 Robot jobs created overnight.
What made America great during the golden years of blue-collar workers wasn't manufacturing per-se, it was in finding productive use of a workforce which happened to be manufacturing at the time.
It was innovation, and since innovation required manufacturers it had the beautiful side effect of spreading wealth. Those conditions won't exist again, and no amount if wishing it back will make it so. Trump is selling a dream and the stupid people are sucking it up. Prosperity in the future of automation is going to be difficult, there are no easy catchphrase solutions. This is the weakness of democracy in the age of complexity. You can't sell complex solutions to the masses, and this is why China will win.
High value products do no use container ships.
Like cars for example? I'm pretty sure a car is worth more than an iPhone...
"Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturing company best known for its partnership with Apple .. and Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Vizio ..
Gee... Thanks Trump.
Food is subsidized, you have to keep food cheap or people will get angry.
Clothing/Textile is the result of horrible 3rd world working conditions.
Furniture is the result of horrible 3rd world working conditions.
Electronics is the result of horrible 3rd world working conditions. (See suicide net comments)
Gas prices are all over the place, I will let you draw your own conclusion.
So let's ask the following questions.
1. Do you need a college education? Yes
2. Can college debt be discharged in bankruptcy? No
3. Do you need insurance? Yes
4. Are you forced to buy auto, home, and medical? Yes
5. Do you have to pay property taxes and fees? Yes
6. Can you grow your own food? Yes
7. Can you buy resale furniture or make your own? Yes
8. Can you walk, ride a bike, or take public transportation? Yes
9. Can you live without your cell phone? No, not if you are a hipster or millennial. It is more important to snapchat or tweet from a protest march than it is to vote as evidenced by the pathetic voter turnout rate for the last election. 55% really?
10. Can you save enough money for retirement? No.
So in conclusion, the numbers you accused me of Cherry Picking matter an awful lot more than cheap furniture and cheap electronics. The numbers I listed are things YOU HAVE TO BUY, most are mandated by law like INSURANCE.
The future is significantly less secure for young people today due to wage stagnation and lack of good, long-term stable jobs with benefits. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling a free-trade agreement. They will say stuff like, "Oh there will be some losers with the agreement, but many will be better off." What has this brought us? An economy where 40% of the workers exist in the service economy with few full-time workers or benefits.
If Germany can do it, the USA can do. Good education, strong worker protection, world class products, and strong exports.
I say this to anyone. If the playing field is level America can compete. If the playing field is not level and the American worker is competing with someone who makes $2/week, then no, we can no compete and win. If we are going to have free-trade, there has to be work-protection and and an adjustment factor for standard of living.
If not, the race to the bottom will continue. More laws will get passed forcing you to pay for things you have to have (money to go to college, auto, property, and health insurance) and can't afford while the standard of living plummets.
This must stop.
"Container ships are for big stuff, heavy stuff"... so sayeth the original poster, reading is a skill
I don't know exactly what sort of electricity subsidy they are looking for, but if Penn gives them free juice, free land (and probably wave all prop taxes for infinity) then it may well be cheaper than china. Corp's are brilliant playing state governments. Remember Dell in N.C. Foxconn is only going to do this if they make more money in Pa than CN. And the only way that is going to happen is if Pa bends over big time. As to shipping, ROFL, I've seen concrete pavers made in china at Lowe's. And they were cheaper than domestically made ones.
That's part of the issue, though. The freight arriving at the port DOES have to be delivered from the port to a point elsewhere, and that's where the shipping expense really starts.
I am not saying we have to make 'every good'. I would argue though that the cost of having a significant portion of the country on welfare and needing treatment for various ailments such as obesity and drug abuse has been ignored in calculating comparative advantage. Our government has basically subsiding corporate profits by keeping these people from dying in the streets.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The contract to build the Suicide Netting?
And then laughing all the way home.
Hey for all you "trump good" people, net neutrality will disappear (no surprise there).
If Germany can do it, the USA can do.If Germany can do it, the USA can do.
The article you link to shows how the German culture is more or less exactly the opposite of the USA in a number of very crucial ways. If the USA wants to be more like Germany, a lot of changes that Americans will not be comfortable with will have to be made and it will take many, many years before the benefits can be reaped. It would be very wise to learn from Germany (and some other countries), but do not expect overnight success. Large parts of the American industry have been centred around mediocrity for a long time.
With the election of Donald Trump and his economic agenda, the USA will continue the policy of protecting American manufacturing companies from the consequences of not being competitive on product quality with competitors in Europe and Japan and on price with companies in Asian countries and Mexico. It will do nothing about the fundamental problems and hence American products won't become any better or cheaper. The American consumer will pay for it and the rest of the world will buy even fewer American exports. In the end, everyone loses.