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...

Re: I work in IT

[Nidi62]

Maybe not, supposedly this deal was a big issue in the Wisconsin gubernatorial election this year. So we will find out soon whether or not they keep the same bums in. The current governor was the one who really pushed the deal through.

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.

Re:People actually believe in STUPID rumors?

[iggymanz]

actually done for textiles and prostitution, people promised immigration to American, then at LAX with the help of criminal employees there the people are whisked off to factory or brothel.

that's how to do it, and even make the victims pay for it.

Re:The Verge has a long article about this boondog

[rmdingler]

Our middling City, in the grand tradition of keeping up with the Joneses, has implemented a quarter cent sales tax increase to fund an Economic Development Fund.

It has basically amounted to little more than a slush fund for the politically connected, and though the promise of economic diversity looms large like the lottery funding education, it is just another way to funnel taxpayer's money to the ruling class.

"Sure, let's legislate additional ways for our reliable politicians to hoover up our tax money... it's a tried and true method that virtually always falls short of expectations."

Re:The Verge has a long article about this boondog

[fluffernutter]

They can hire anyone in the US if they want to. Moving costs and/or remote worker environments are pretty cheap to set up.

Re:The Verge has a long article about this boondog

[phalse phace]

What a colossal fail.

Here's a well researched article

[rsilvergun]

showing that you're wrong. Starting in the 90s the State & Federal gov't pulled their funding. That's what made the cost of college sky rocket.

If you had kids in college (or were there yourself) you'd know this, because you'd know that for every 1 spot in the 300 and 400 level classes there's at least 2 qualified students. And by "qualified" I mean a GPA of 3.8 or higher. My kid just manged to squeak in. She was rocking a 4.0 and even that wasn't necessarily enough. She did a special prep program on top of that.

Now, if the reason for skyrocketing tuition was inflationary you'd expect the price to be much, much higher. Since in a capitalist system if you have more demand than supply and can't increase supply you raise prices. But that's not what's happened because teachers like to teach and they are desperately trying to. Even while folks like yourself sit on the sidelines and deride them...