It is a small step to bringing good manufacturing jobs back home, but an important one. Hopefully other companies will bring good jobs back over here. I, for one, don't mind paying a little more for a product that is made in the USA by American workers. I figure my money is helping someone put food on the table in my country and it really boosts the economy when the money we spend stays here.
Actually, bringing things back home (aka in-sourcing) is being done primarily for financial reasons. In particular, the cost of shipping the components and finished goods between their COO, manufacturing location, and the final destination combined with increasing wages in China, have gotten to the point it's cheaper to relocate manufacturing closer to the component sources and use automation to replace as many of the human workers currently being used as possible. Since more and more of the components are made in the US in this case, it makes sense.
Bit more to it, but the increases in shipping costs and wages are the biggest part of the decisions to bring certain things back to the US (improvements on QA/QC = reduced defect rate, better security, reduced instance of IP theft, improved ability to meet delivery dates, ... also play into it generally speaking, but keep in mind that these aspects also translate into financial figures, as that's what business/accounting understand - dollars and cents, nothing more in my experience).
Unfortunately, since most of the assembly will be automated, the number of jobs created won't be that large. If you recall from the initial statements on the relocation to the US (product unnamed at the time), it indicated that there wouldn't be a lot of jobs created, and the estimates of ~200 employees are realistic.
Every Apple product is made in the USA by American workers to some extent. The majority of design, engineering, operations, marketing, etc. employees live and work in the USA. The final assembly might be in China but the high paying jobs are right here in the USA. I'd rather have those types of jobs here than low wage assembly jobs.
Apple doesn't employ that many people though compared to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision).
To put this into perspective:
Apple employees: 72,800
Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) employees: 1.23 million
(as of 2012, source = Wikipedia).
Not all of the Apple employees are high paying either, as those numbers include the Apple Store personnel. Hon Hai's figures are mostly factory workers, but includes engineers, technicians, ... as well.
The difference? The factory workers are making better wages than their counterparts in China working say agricultural jobs, and sending money back home. Here, you wouldn't be able to do that with the typical service industry job, such as something that goes along the lines of "Would you like fries with that?".
In fact, a lot of these types of employees in the US are reliant on public assistance. There was even a movie (
WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price, 2005) made about this regarding WalMart (WalMart employees cost the US taxpayer over $1.5 Billion in public assistance, and that was back in 2005
).
We need a balance of high, mid, and low skill positions, as it's not remotely realistic to think that everyone can have the high paying jobs in the US.
Even if everyone had a BS/BA or better, all that would happen is a decrease in wages due to an over-supply of personnel. Effectively making the Bachelors degree
toilet paper the new HS diploma. Wait a second ... this is already happening.
Yes, the high paying jobs are important, but the lower-level jobs would also help to employ more Americans. Not everyone can get the upper level jobs that are currently available and would be happy simply with consistent employment.
Absolutely agree.
Wages also need to be at a livable standard for everyone, not just the very top end. Otherwise, the US Domestic Market will essentially stagnate and collapse (no money, no sales; simple as that).
[...snip...]
My only real criticism with Vonnegut's projections is that he thought that engineers would have alot more power and influence than they actually have. From my own experience MBA's, CPA's, and lawyers have much more power."
- review from amazon
I'd have to agree with whomever wrote this, particularly the last part. Engineers have little to no power/influence on what's going on.