Apple is sitting on about $54 billion in cash right now. iPad’s are still back ordered, and the company is looking at record earnings.
However, this isn’t generating jobs here- it’s generating jobs in China- where the workers can’t afford to buy the products:
Taiwanese contractor Foxconn said today it would hire 400,000 workers at new plants in China. The plants will be built closer to the new employees’ homes, as the company tries to increase worker happiness after a recent number of suicides. The company’s revenue has increased by 50 percent and will help afford the new workforce, which will number between 1.2 and 1.3 million.The new factories will be built at inland provinces Henan and Sichuan …This plant has about 900,000 workers, and over five years, this is expected to decrease by 170,000 with those workers moving to the new plants.
via Foxconn hiring 400,000 new workers, locating closer to home | Electronista [1].
And to think Apple used to make computers in Fremont, California- with former auto workers and a lot of automation. Just imagine the impact if Apple decided to start making products in America again- maybe even at the former GM Moraine Assembly plant?
If American companies want to have a U.S. market in the future- their best investment would be to start hiring Americans as fast as possible- before the dollar becomes worthless on international markets and our economy collapses.
David, I cannot agree with you more. There needs to be change in this country. Unfortunately, we cannot blame the companies though. We have to look deeper. We need to look at the stock holders. They are the true “voice” of the company. They are the ones that drive the jobs to China. These companies have to answer to these stock holders that care nothing more than to line their personal pockets with money. I think if we (as a country and society) became less greedy and more appreciative, we wouldn’t be shipping jobs over seas. At some point we have to stop supporting the Chinese economy.
And on a side note, its ironic you say this because I read not too long ago that China was closing 2000 factories for various reasons.
Plants are closing in China because they are moving to find cheaper labor in Vietnam and Indonesia.
David, I couldn’t disagree more. Evan said:
I’ve actually been to China a couple times. Once you get out of the nouveau riche big cities (population ~300M, yes they have a whole US just in their cities) and out into the countryside (population ~800M), what you see is villages of peasant farmers breaking their backs while farming little tiny plots by hand (you have to bend over to dig in the dirt, you get a work bench for assembling your iPhone).
I don’t begrudge those guys the chance at a factory job assembling iGizmos for Yuppies one damn bit.
If its cheaper to produce in China I’m not sure I understand how artificially raising production costs and consequently the prices of goods by producing in the US makes us more wealthy or how it would make a company more competitive in a global market. We send dollars overseas for goods and services because foreigners want dollars so they can either spend those dollars on American exports or American assets. How does this demand for dollars decrease the value of the dollar? More likely the devaluation of the dollar is the result of reckless deficit spending by government.