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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.
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.
*considers* and *could* are not the same as *is and *will*
"Have you become so cold and heartless that you would have people suffer just to advance your own political agenda?"
I'm sorry, but I have to laugh at that. While the "left" may be guilty of this as well, the "right" is no stranger to causing harm to advance political ideals.
The republican party has left so many people behind as well. If you're lamenting the previous state of the democratic party, but express that by supporting republican party, then you're either a total fool, or yourself a political ideologue.
I don't know that it's fair to attribute this to Trump (and I voted for him). However, even if it was, why would this make anyone sad? Are you so partisan that you would actually lament the fact that 50,000 people in Pennsylvania are going to have new jobs? Have you become so cold and heartless that you would have people suffer just to advance your own political agenda?
I'm old enough to remember a time when the Democratic Party stood up for the working class; when they were the party of compassion; when they stood up for civil liberties like free speech. Sadly, the party has long since left all that (and me) behind. And if the last election was any indication, a lot of people in formerly blue states think the party has left them behind too, states like Pennsylvania.
Republicans have been so partisan that they blocked infrastructure improvements for 8 years and allowed their country to rot so their guy could shine by making infrastructure improvements one of his big campaign issues. You also blocked a posting to the supreme court so that you could fill it after the election. Not exactly an example of non-partisansship is it? While I don't see Democrats as being flawless by any stretch of the imagination you Trump voting Republicans aren't exactly angels of honesty virtue and selflessness either. You would do well to look in a mirror once in a while.
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
Except taking taxpayer money in subsidies and creating minimum wage assembly line jobs which will probably be replaced with automation within the decade does nothing except funnel even more money up the capitalist pyramid to the top. All that subsidy money should be spent on education for those workers so they can get better-than-minimum wage jobs. There's no benefit to the lower class if you're just keeping them enslaved as factory workers, you're just enabling the upper class.
And if Obama and Democrats in congress push a health care plan directly modeled on Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan (a plan which was considered a success by most Republicans), Republicans will be against it. This is not a new phenomenon, and it is not unique to one party or one president.
Foxconn first announced that they were "considering" building a factory in Harrisburg in 2013. So far they have moved this many shovels of dirt: 0.
So now they are rehashing the announcement three days after Trump's inauguration, getting lots of good press, and venting the steam from protectionism, while still uncommitted to actually doing anything. Politically, this is brilliant.