Apple Touts U.S. Job Creation with Claims of 514,000 Jobs Tied to its Products

[MattInOz]

Just because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore, doesn't mean you couldn't do it very successfully even with 'high' labor costs. Ever been to Germany?

Well this is the point. It's not the cost labour but the cost of the engineering support to keep the whole chain running.

Apple could manufacture in US with robotic factories to balance the labour cost but if they can't get the resources they need to keep those factories running then they aren't going to do it.

The countries that manufacture today have all favored their technical education systems.

 

[Speedy2]

For the Chinese it's either work in bad factories for meager pay, or go back to their villages and not get paid anything and just be subsistence farmers.

Raising wages to American levels just doesn't make sense. Prices of things in America would increase exponentially, and lots of Chinese people would lose their jobs.

You know what made sense? Giving the workers fair rights and human working conditions. Raising wages to American levels is indeed outlandish and something I never claimed. Wages will go up automatically to a more balanced level if the workers get more rights. Right now it's a exploitation free-for-all.

I'm not primarily blaming Apple or HP or Asus for this. I'm blaming the Chinese government, this so-called 'people's' republic.

 

[eric/]

Well this is the point. It's not the cost labour but the cost of the engineering support to keep the whole chain running.

Apple could manufacture in US with robotic factories to balance the labour cost but if they can't get the resources they need to keep those factories running then they aren't going to do it.

The countries that manufacture today have all favored their technical education systems.

Implying any of that is more cost effective.

----------

You know what made sense? Giving the workers fair rights and human working conditions. Raising wages to American levels is indeed outlandish and something I never claimed. Wages will go up automatically to a more balanced level if the workers get more rights. Right now it's a exploitation free-for-all.

I'm not primarily blaming Apple or HP or Asus for this. I'm blaming the Chinese government, this so-called 'people's' republic.

Well it would be great if they would, then China's economy would fail, jobs would be exported to other sources of cheap labor, and nothing would have been really fixed.

We need to just stay out of the internal affairs of other countries. If they're fine with working for cheap, than so be it.

 

[Speedy2]

Well this is the point. It's not the cost labour but the cost of the engineering support to keep the whole chain running.

Apple could manufacture in US with robotic factories to balance the labour cost but if they can't get the resources they need to keep those factories running then they aren't going to do it.

The model works very well for Intel.
I'm pretty sure, the entire continent of North America minus Canada and Mexico could easily provide Apple with a few thousand college graduates with engineering degrees.

 

[eric/]

The model works very well for Intel.
I'm pretty sure, the entire continent of North America minus Canada and Mexico could easily provide Apple with a few thousand college graduates with engineering degrees.

You'd be surprised...

 

[Speedy2]

Well it would be great if they would, then China's economy would fail, jobs would be exported to other sources of cheap labor, and nothing would have been really fixed.

You mean, just like France and the US and Canada and Germany and Australia and the UK and pretty much all the Western countries that collapsed immediately after they introduced worker's rights and banned hazardous working conditions, right?

 

[eric/]

You mean, just like France and the US and Canada and Germany and Australia and the UK and pretty much all the Western countries that collapsed immediately after they introduced worker's rights and banned hazardous working conditions, right?

They didn't require exports in order to keep their economy going.

Also, different times, different analysis.

 

[firewood]

So exploiting their situation, the low standard of living and the company-friendly 'laws' of a dictatorship just to squeeze out a few more dollars of profit is totally cool with you?

As opposed to what? Starting a war with China and "freeing" then from dictatorship like the U.S. did in Iraq? Boycotting them like North Korea? How well have the last two worked for the people involved compared to "exploiting" FoxConn workers in China by offering them jobs? In which of these 3 countries would you choose to live?

 

[MattInOz]

The model works very well for Intel.
I'm pretty sure, the entire continent of North America minus Canada and Mexico could easily provide Apple with a few thousand college graduates with engineering degrees.

Except intels product per engineer is more valuable so they and all the other employers already there can afford soak up all that and more. indeed apple themselves are pulling any talent they can find into their design teams and data Centres.

If the US is like Australia we are importing engineers from because we have a shortage.

 

[Speedy2]

The migration of manufacturing jobs off-shore is the best thing to happen to North America. Who wants to make a living clipping plastic and metal together in a factory anymore?

The living would be made in technologically advanced factories that automate clipping plastic and metal together. It would employ less people in the US than in China of course, but it would still be more than zero.

 

[kdarling]

Apple says this on their website:

A study by Analysis Group found that Apple has directly or indirectly created 304,000 U.S. jobs.*

These jobs — spread across all 50 states — include thousands of jobs in numerous industries, from the people who create components for our products to the people who build the planes and trucks that carry them to our customers.

Cool. If they're going to include airplane and truck makers, then every single one of us on this forum who travels or drives, or even goes to the grocery or uses the US mail, could be said to "indirectly generate" thousands of jobs.

For example, this figure also includes workers in Texas who manufacture processors for iOS products, Corning employees in Kentucky and New York who create the majority of the glass for iPhone, and FedEx and UPS employees.

It would really be helpful to see all these figures broken down by company. How many Corning, FedEx and UPS employees do they claim only have a job because of Apple? I mean, it's possible it's a fair number of people. Lay it out for us to admire.

Together with the 210,000 iOS jobs generated by the app economy,

210,000 iOS jobs. Are those full time all year jobs with decent salaries, or just anyone who made over a few dollars selling an app?

these 304,000 jobs make a total of 514,000 U.S. jobs created or supported by Apple.

Are "supported" jobs ones where they even partly have something to do with Apple products? If so, are they counted as one whole job, or a part of a job?

This PR attempt raises far more questions than it purports to answer.

 

[firewood]

Just because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore, doesn't mean you couldn't do it very successfully even with 'high' labor costs. Ever been to Germany?

For one big reason why, look at the quality of the school system in Germany and the percentage of the German population who get technical degrees. Then compare with the U.S.

Not sure about the percentages in China, but in sheer numbers, they graduate a ton more engineers than the U.S. each year.

Modern manufacturing requires a lot of on-going engineering.

 

[samcraig]

Careful - I posted how skeptical I am and how much PR spin this is and some people just seem to have the hardest time accepting it.

Apple says this on their website:



Cool. If they're going to include airplane and truck makers, then every single one of us on this forum who travels or drives, or even goes to the grocery or uses the US mail, could be said to "indirectly generate" tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs.



It would really be helpful to see all these figures broken down by company. How many Corning, FedEx and UPS employees do they claim only have a job because of Apple? I mean, it's possible it's a fair number of people. If so, then there should be problem telling us.



Wow, 210,000 iOS jobs. Are those full time all year jobs with decent salaries, or just anyone who made over $50 selling an app?



Are "supported" jobs ones where they even partly have something to do with Apple products? If so, are they counted as one whole job, or a part of a job?

This PR attempt raises far more questions than it purports to answer.

 

[eric/]

For one big reason why, look at the quality of the school system in Germany and the percentage of the German population who get technical degrees. Then compare with the U.S.

Not sure about the percentages in China, but in sheer numbers, they graduate a ton more engineers than the U.S. each year.

Modern manufacturing requires a lot of on-going engineering.

The engineers they graduate are the equivalent of somebody taking like a 6 month course in engineering or something ridiculous.

Which is why they can't design or build anything without foreign help.

 

[The Economist]

Cool. If they're going to include airplane and truck makers, then every single one of us on this forum who travels or drives, or even goes to the grocery or uses the US mail, could be said to "indirectly generate" tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs.

If you travel, drive and consume you indeed indirectly generate jobs. Multiply that by the entire population of a country and you get yourself an economy; plus the effect of international commerce, you get an even bigger economy. Use your neurons.

The engineers they graduate are the equivalent of somebody taking like a 6 month course in engineering or something ridiculous.

Which is why they can't design or build anything without foreign help.

The only foreign "help" China is getting is in the form of investment. With a population of over a billion, I'm sure they have a couple of competent professionals.

 

[uknowimright]

six degrees of apple

 

[Speedy2]

As opposed to what? Starting a war with China and "freeing" then from dictatorship like the U.S. did in Iraq? Boycotting them like North Korea? How well have the last two worked for the people involved compared to "exploiting" FoxConn workers in China by offering them jobs? In which of these 3 countries would you choose to live?

As opposed to laws for instance that require products that are sold on US soil to be manufactured under decent working conditions. As opposed to not actually subsidizing the offshoring of labor. As opposed to get more people into engineering instead of business degrees. And so on.

I'm perfectly aware that you can't force the Chinese government to change their politics, at least not US-style.

 

[eric/]

The only foreign "help" China is getting is in the form of investment. With a population of over a billion they are bound to happen a couple of competent professionals.

No, China relies extensively on foreign consultants, architects, engineers, designers, etc... The competent professionals they do have are mostly trained in the United States.

 

[samcraig]

If you travel, drive and consume you indeed indirectly generate jobs. Multiply that by the entire population of a country and you get yourself an economy; plus the effect of international commerce, you get an even bigger economy. Use your neurons.

kdarling is actually very intelligent. What he, I and some others are trying to point out is that Apple's "claim"/interpretation is incredibly loose. And the fact that they are "touting" their numbers is quite the spin.

Maybe I'll send out a press release tonight that I am directly and indirectly responsible for 275,000 jobs because of where I live, where I work, how I shop, etc.

No one would argue that Apple isn't creating jobs or that they've created jobs. But this is nothing more than PR spin to combat the negative press they are getting about offshore. Unfortunately - it's way too transparent. For most who care to use their Neurons.

 

[firewood]

Cool. If they're going to include airplane and truck makers, then every single one of us on this forum who travels or drives, or even goes to the grocery or uses the US mail, could be said to "indirectly generate" thousands of jobs.

Exactly. When ordinary people decreased their spending, it was a major cause of job loss during the last (or current) recession, many hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. If people not spending causes job loss, then, by converse, people spending more causes job creation... eventually.

And there are 2 ends of any spending transaction. A customer with enough money and a product vendor with a good enough product. Apple has been one of the latter.

 

[rcappo]

I wonder how many government jobs they are funding through the sales taxes and income taxes they pay?

 

[The Economist]

kdarling is actually very intelligent. What he, I and some others are trying to point out is that Apple's "claim"/interpretation is incredibly loose. And the fact that they are "touting" their numbers is quite the spin.

Maybe I'll send out a press release tonight that I am directly and indirectly responsible for 275,000 jobs because of where I live, where I work, how I shop, etc.

No one would argue that Apple isn't creating jobs or that they've created jobs. But this is nothing more than PR spin to combat the negative press they are getting about offshore. Unfortunately - it's way too transparent. For most who care to use their Neurons.

I know what everyone here is implying. I'm not defending Apple, but if you want to criticise Apple's claims, sarcasm doesn't work.

 

[decksnap]

Can everyone shut the f up about Apple not using Gorilla Glass Now? This pretty much confirms they do.

 

[Speedy2]

For one big reason why, look at the quality of the school system in Germany and the percentage of the German population who get technical degrees. Then compare with the U.S.

Well then.

The number of engineering degrees per capita is higher in the US than in Germany: http://www.engtrends.com/IEE/0405A.php

I won't even start on the wildly higher number of immigrants with engineering degrees in the US compared to Germany.

US universities are generally ranked among the best in the world (which German universities do you know?) According to OECD rankings, the German school system is mediocre at best. Better than the US, but far behind countries like Canada or Finland.

 

[blow45]

(...)

It's backfire-wood time for apple and the utter bs pr they tried to spin today. Jobs was intelligent enough to foresee the ridicule such proclamations would ensue, and unapologetic enough to not ask the pr machine to come up with them.