Foxconn Hiring Record 100,000 New Employees for iPhone 6 Production as Pegatron Also Staffs Up

[vpro]

boring

these stories are getting boring and old fast. the phone is huge, growing the screen means you also get more bezel and overall a chuckier phone. personally i don't care for the cameras, i really - really - seriously think in the future camera's should be mountable as additions, if they are so smart they should also not have a home button. they should have what i suggested as their economic phone: option to mount front and back cameras in one unit and option without the stupid huge space hog of a home button. i just want it to be all screen / display for my "content" peronally on a "personal device". like on my iPad Air, the thing is great but the fat uper lower bezels makes my content viewing experience on landscape mode tiring and uninspired bezel is fatter than the macbook air's *vomit*.

 

[StyxMaker]

ARGH! CUT THOSE DAMN NAILS!



At least we have 100,000 more people to leak parts, so why not.

Why do you, or anyone else care how long some stranger's nails are?

 

[Mike MA]

Wow, a nightmare for their HR department

 

[wizard]

In December 2013, Foxconn announced plans to invest $30 million over two years to build a manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania, as well as putting $10 million into R&D at Carnegie Mellon University. The new facility will be located in Harrisburg and will develop robotic equipment.

And where would that robotic equipment be used?

The largest factory worldwide is in Longhua, Shenzhen, where hundreds of thousands of workers (varying counts from 230,000 to 450,000) are employed at the Longhua Science & Technology Park, a walled campus. How many workers will be employed at the Pennsylvania factory?

13, 11 of those vice presidents and one president. The actual number of workers would be one.*

Not to be an a$$ but most US based companies are so top heavy as to be a joke.

Foxconn has 13 factories in China and others worldwide, and they manufacture for many electronics companies.

What's up with the comments about long fingernails? Is that important to you? MANY women have long fingernails. Flinch? Every time?

My only question about the workers being hired is what is involved in the training for that assembly work? It would seem the same workers would be used since they already know something about the process.

Many of these workers are just cogs in the machine having but one simple function to learn.

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Not all of us who use smart phones are near-sighted. I want a larger phone. My current Android phone is 4.3 inches diagonally, and a larger phone would make reading easier, especially when using the internet.

This is all true but the problem is Apple quickly forgets about past hardware and really only tries to sell one device. Hell you guys can have a ten inch iPhone for all I care, I just want a small iPhone with the modern features to replace my iPhone 4.

My fingers are not tiny, and I would like to be able to see larger buttons for typing and making selections.

Actually it wouldn't make any difference at all. Size of the text on screen will remain the same. By the way I'm 6'+ and even then I want a cell phone that is of convenient size. I can actually see myself leaving the Apple fold over this issue as the only new products they sell continue to get bigger and bigger.

As a side note I was at the local porting goods store last night looking for shorts. In a very literal sense I had to check the depth of the pockets in the shorts just to make sure they where deep enough to actually be useful. Many are so bad you are lucky to keep your keys in place. A cell phone that is six inches long wouldn't have a chance.

 

[wizard]

You do NOT need to politicize here.

Actually it has little to do with politics but more related to human nature. Some people just need a motivation to get off their dead asses and get a job. Hunger is one very good motivator, as is a warm place to sleep at night. Take these motivators away, via the creation of a welfare state, and you will find yourself in a downwards spiral as more and more people adopt the gravy train instead of becoming useful members of society. Politics really isn't the issue here, other than one party using this ugly side of human mature to get ahead.

But that OP didn't say what you attributed to him. What he posted was inane and full of errors, both factual as well as grammatical (to the point of being unintelligible).

I think you need to read his post and mine again.

 

[Xiroteus]

The other problem about making them in the US. Where would you find even 20,000 people who would want to work in an iPhone factory? It's a low skill, low pay job that is very repetitive with very little chance for advancement. I feel we a lucky to NOT have these jobs in the US.

Want to? Most people working is about a need not a want. If people work fast food they would surely work at an iPhone factory if it at least paid minimum wage. As for twenty thousand people, it would depend on location or they would have to split the factory to more than one location.

I can't see how the U.S. is lucky for not having more job options for people when so many need work.

 

[gnasher729]

100,00 new hires.....yikesz!!

Look for more "nets" on the dorms and QC issues up the wazooo for the first production runs of iPhone 6

According to numbers on Wikipedia, suicide rates among Foxconn workers are currently less than one in 100,000. In the US population, more than 10 in 100,000. Suicide jumps on the Golden Gate Bridge are about 50 times more than at Foxconn. That's because they don't have suicide nets in San Francisco (too expensive).

 

[kerrikins]

Why would they have to hire a 100,000 new workers? Wouldn't the existing workers on the iPhone 5 and 5s lines be sufficient to cover production moving to iPhone 6? Or is Apple counting on a mega explosion of sales in a somewhat saturated market (in the West)?

/\____ is usually an accurate depiction of iPhone sales. Considering the heavy demand they experience when they first launch it would be silly for them to not plan for that initial spike. I imagine Foxconn has workers they hire on a temporary basis to deal with this sort of thing.

 

[FieldingMellish]

I want to apply for the job of that person who brutally scourges the workers so that they try harder and harder putting those phones together faster and with perfection. Not.

 

[ksuyen]

Yep, the nicest thing about humans is their expendibility. You can hire them and fire them again just as easily as soon as you're done with them, and they go back out on the street and become someone elses problem. You're rather stuck with Robots, needing continual maintenance & upgrades & taking up space whether you have a use for them or not. Even getting rid of them costs considerable time and money.

Ideally, you'd use humans, but utilize them as robots when you need them, and humans again when you don't. What a wonderful world.

Did you forget "/s" there?

 

[Xiroteus]

Maybe you do have millions who need work, but why not just reinstate slavery, cause that is basically what you are wishing for. Living under slave wages, working all the time, except for when you eat and sleep (not to mention the fact that you have to leave your family to live in a concentration camp (more or less).

The day that kind of prodcution returns to america is the day China is world leader and america has colapsed into a third world country.

It could be ran just like any other U.S. company with normal work hours and pay.

 

[bigchrisfgb]

The US spends almost nothing on "social programs" Case in point maybe you noticed every other first world country has healthcare for their citizens, the US does not.

Yeah, it's so ingrained in US culture that any sort if social investment is bad that the poor sick people who are dying because they can't afford medical are even voting against legislation that would save their lives.
Some things you literally couldn't make up.

 

[AFDoc]

I wouldn't. What about Apple builds iPhones for the US market in the USA and your prices go through the roof, and build iPhones for the UK market in China and sell them at decent prices?

Apple is a billion dollar company and could eat those losses and keep the price increase to a minimum. It would soon level off when things are "rolling". Sure it's not the smartest move from a bottom line point of view but the publicity and the increase in "American Made" sales wouldn't hurt and would probably take a large chunk of the loss away. Not saying all should be made here but why not have a MITUSA option?

When the iPhone 4 was going to come out, I thought for sure they were going to lose the bezel, bury the components under the display, and run the sensors through tiny perforated areas of the glass near the edges, with some minimal tinting soft-fading in, ideally on some shape approximating the magic mouse, to make a really seamless and sleek device.
This new phone is finally catching up to where iPhone 1 & 2 left off, design-wise.

I wish they would change it too but I'll take a larger phone over a frontal re-design any day. IF it takes the same front to give me the 5.5" I want then so be it. iPhone 7??

I wonder what the cost difference would be.
Since they would have to build new factories and train workers, I bet the price difference for that scenario would be MASSIVE in the short run.
I don't think it would be smart to do that.

As I said in an above response of course it would be a dumb move on a bottom line approach but the "good will" gained from a "Made in America" phone would be pretty big.

I would too but I think that the iPhone would be a lot more not just slightly more if it was made here.

Explained above..... I agree but....

YOU might pay more but soon the US will not be the biggest market of iPhones.
I've read it takes 20 labor hours to build a phone. Assume a factory worker in TX is willing to work for $15 per hours and overhead (Social Security, taxes, healthcare, vacation and sick leave and so n) double that to $30 per hour. But there is a $2/he saving be not going to China so the net gain is $28/hr So the net gain is $560 per iPhone......

Read above responses....... Also not saying ALL iPhones need to be made in the USA. VW's bound for the German/European market are made in Germany.... Those bound for America and most likely N/S America are made in Mexico... At least they were in 2000 as I lived in Germany and tried to buy one off the "factory" floor only to find out the floor was in Mexico.

 

[mtneer]

/\____ is usually an accurate depiction of iPhone sales. Considering the heavy demand they experience when they first launch it would be silly for them to not plan for that initial spike. I imagine Foxconn has workers they hire on a temporary basis to deal with this sort of thing.

I see it now. I guess it's a lot easier to hire and fire a 100,000 people for a quarter or two, in China, compared to the amount of political and legal noise such a maneuver would generate in the West.

 

[Doc C]

To respond to your "poor saps" comment, let me start with an illustration. I was traveling through the Middle East once, and visited the ruins of a great city and region that was the centre of trade for about 600 years. Then circumstances changed, and it faded away into the lost sands of the desert, only to be discovered a few decades ago. It struck me that in the rise and fall of civilisations, that's about the average that a team gets to dominate on the civilisations standings.

So with the U.S. printing green-colored paper to prop up the illusion of being wealthy, so that it's citizens can be given bread and circuses to buy Apple toys, it could be that within 2-3 generations, your great grandkids might be the poor saps working in the ruins of derelict cities to cheaply produce the toys of the next cycle of civilisation.

As U.S. corporations ship their technology (a.k.a. out-sourcing) to overseas, and shift their profits offshore, the gradual transfer of technological wealth is like sand slipping through a Microsoft wait-icon.

The fact that you could not care whether your great grandchildren might be poor saps making toys for overseas rich countries probably is part of the disease that is not just in the profit-at-all-costs CEOs, but a society that breeds such a pool of leaders that have such attitudes.

This effect has been true no matter which civilization you look at. Within reasonable bounds, most cultures/civilizations have seen the same pattern of rising and falling - almost a youth/adulthood/senescence pattern if you will.

Typically the latter portion of each has been characterized by increased decadence, a greater divide between rich and poor, greater frequency of periods of unrest, and more social unrest in the youth. This was seen as far back as the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians and Egyptians, and as recently as the French and British Empires.

It frightens me that we in the current "First World" may be witnessing the senescence of our culture, and perhaps the concurrent birth or early youth of the next dominant ones (China, perhaps India).

 

[SHNXX]

Ultimately apple has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, not the general public.
As such, any discussion of large scale manufacturing for apple is unproductive.

 

[thaifood]

That's because it's NOT the United States.
It is pretty easy to mobilize in cultures that cultivate a work ethic.

I agree. Eastern countries do have such a strong work ethic. This extends to education also. Australian selective schools have a large proportion of Asian students due to the weight their respective cultures put on academic performance.

Population size plays a big part also. No way this could be done here in Australia when our population is about 23 million.

 

[Menel]

Apple is a billion dollar company and could eat those losses and keep the price increase to a minimum. It would soon level off when things are "rolling". Sure it's not the smartest move from a bottom line point of view but the publicity and the increase in "American Made" sales wouldn't hurt and would probably take a large chunk of the loss away. Not saying all should be made here but why not have a MITUSA option?





I wish they would change it too but I'll take a larger phone over a frontal re-design any day. IF it takes the same front to give me the 5.5" I want then so be it. iPhone 7??





As I said in an above response of course it would be a dumb move on a bottom line approach but the "good will" gained from a "Made in America" phone would be pretty big.





Explained above..... I agree but....





Read above responses....... Also not saying ALL iPhones need to be made in the USA. VW's bound for the German/European market are made in Germany.... Those bound for America and most likely N/S America are made in Mexico... At least they were in 2000 as I lived in Germany and tried to buy one off the "factory" floor only to find out the floor was in Mexico.

Moto didn't earn much with their made in USA phone. The American people have spoken with our actions and wallers. We don't care.

 

[SHNXX]

I would also like to point out that a lot of times MADE IN USA label is kind of a canard.

I heard that in some cases, only labels are stitched onto clothing and the MADE IN USA claim can be legally made.
Apparently American apparel does this.

 

[MacSince1990]

In the US, I would think that the biggest problem for such an endeavor would be finding 100,000 able, willing and skilled people to perform the job; not the cost of paying salaries.

Um...

 

[superman23]

I'm going to disagree. There seems to be this attitude that somehow Asian workers are born skilled. Not so. I lived and worked in Japan for nine years. I worked with the reps in Taiwan, Korea and China and visited there a lot.

A lot of success there is due to assembling a great team out of the general population and training and organizing them well.

If you the will and the budget you can do quite a lot. Look at how much was done in the US in WWII dipomestically. Factories were refitted and staffed with women who had to be quickly trained for all sorts of jobs in a very short time.

*HAD* to be quickly trained. There is no have to in the USA...right now. The people who are starving are mentally ill or drug addicts. Everyone else is taken care of one way or another, whether they work or not.

 

[AFDoc]

Moto didn't earn much with their made in USA phone. The American people have spoken with our actions and wallers. We don't care.

Still a great PR move that apple could easily swallow.... the mountain of cash wouldn't feel a thing.

 

[Xiroteus]

*HAD* to be quickly trained. There is no have to in the USA...right now. The people who are starving are mentally ill or drug addicts. Everyone else is taken care of one way or another, whether they work or not.

Seriously?

Many people get help yet not enough for a place to live and needed bills.

 

[jacobj]

I remmende this forum going bonkers ober the fact that a competing brand was bringing out larger screen size phones and that they would NEVER want a large iPhone, because glorious Steve said 4" was big enough. And they rest of the world was stupid, and that they never wanted a bigger iPhone because it was stupid and Steve said so.

And here we have. And I bet a larger screen size will be seen as innovative .

Jobs was a brilliant visionary, but also an amazing revisionist. He backed down when wrong, e.g. opening up iOS to 3rd party apps.

In other words part of his brilliance was in his willingness to change tack when he needed to and not drive his advantage into the ground out of stubborness, a la Blackberry!!

The same is true of people here. Yes, there are some mindless allegiences on this board, but then that is true for any brand!!

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Compared to where they come from, poverty, near starvation, working out on a rice paddy. A climate controlled, manufacturing oriented campus/dorm where you are fed, have a roof and can save money to send back to your family who is starving in the fields is hugely desirable.

Which is why a 100,000 will line up for such conditions. But wouldn't work in the USA. Completely different situation and culture.

150-200 years ago when a majority of the USA was corn, tobacco, cotton farming labor... some foreign industrialized advanced nation potentially could have done the same for/to us.

But we did it ourselves and didn't rely on anyone else!

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Even this isn't true anymore, the absolute low cost producers have left China due to rising wages. As far as automation goes China has some weird laws that prevent the use of automation in some circumstances, as such the labor isn't always cheaper.



You best stop before you spout much more disinformation.

What disinformation?