Foxconn Denies Looking To Transfer Chinese Workers To Incoming Wisconsin Factory (theverge.com)

A Wall Street Journal article published this morning reported that Foxconn is looking to transfer some of its Chinese workers to Wisconsin in time for its new factory opening in Racine. The article says that these workers would likely be engineers and would fill a gap in prospective talent due to a tight labor market. Foxconn has since denied these claims. The Verge reports: In a comment to Gizmodo, Foxconn denied that it was recruiting Chinese workers. The company said: "We can categorically state that the assertion that we are recruiting Chinese personnel to staff our Wisconsin project is untrue. Our recruitment priority remains Wisconsin first and we continue to focus on hiring and training workers from throughout Wisconsin. We will supplement that recruitment from other U.S. locations as required."

In November 2017, Wisconsin pledged $3 billion in subsidies for the Taiwan-based company if it opted to open the factory in Wisconsin. In return, Foxconn said it would create 13,000 jobs and invest $10 billion. (The state subsidy came out to $230,000 per job.) The Wall Street Journal report suggests that the company is struggling to find qualified engineers in the area, though, as the unemployment rate in the state reached a record low at 3 percent, along with a recent national low at 3.7 percent.

Comments

I work in IT

[rsilvergun]

And I know a couple mechanical engineers doing the same because they couldn't get jobs in their field (unless you count $15/hr in a machine shop as " in your field" after a tough 4 year degree program). There's plenty of talent, but they're not gonna pay for it. They'll have folks on work Visas running the factory in a year or two. Gave it Wisconsin, you got played. Now what are you gonna do about it? Nothing, I bet. Just keep voting the same bums in. Year after year...

The Verge has a long article about this boondoggle

[Streetlight]

The article is pretty detailed:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/...

If the article is correct, the cash subsidy for the factory has ballooned to $4.1 billion, and it won't make what was originally proposed. The payback of the subsidy is "...not 20 years, not 42 years..." likely never. The number of jobs is likely less than the 13,000 promised.