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

[Tumbleweed666]

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)?

Probably because it's a ramp up to build stock up for launch. A large part of those 100,00 will lose their jobs after the initial ramp up just like the 100,000 extra likely lost them after the 5 and 5s initial ramp ups. Big difference between being ready for a surge in last quarter if the year, and "steady state" production.

 

[captain kaos]

Bl00dy hell thats an increase of workers.

 

[chasemac]

The Gates will open when they release the iPhone6. Can't wait! Woohoo! Grab your charge card and pay later! The best is yet to come.

 

[sanook997]

I know this has been beaten to death, but it sure would be nice to see the government(s) work with schools and companies like Apple to develop this scale of manufacturing in the US. If workers need training, give it to them. Build a huge infrastructure in a certain part of the country to allow us to compete with Asia. There are challenges to be met, but we have millions out of work here. Mobile manufacturing isn't a fad. It would be an Apollo scale project, but we did that pretty well.

Michael, your hearts in the right place but the US is past the point of large scale manufacturing, at least until we have more equilibrium in world labor markets. Putting labor rates aside for a moment, can you imagine the ramifications of unionization, subsequents strikes etc. and the effect that would have on a product cycle like the iPhone? Lower wage, semi skilled jobs like these are the sweet spot for union organizers. Even if you think you could manage through the process there is no one anywhere going to take that chance when its not necessary.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

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 .

Straw man argument, no one will see it as innovative (ruling out the jokers who will say that to pull your chain )
I see it as catching up. Apple missed the ball on this one by a couple of years, as use of smartphones moved from principally calls, to principally screen based.

I guess those who are anti large screen are so principally because they think it deprives them of their smaller screen lets say 5s size or even 4s. They couldn't possibly be controlling enough to want to stop those who want a bigger screen getting one could then?

It's interesting there haven't been any rumours of a new 5s size. I suppose they could do that as a speed bump with the internals so there is nothing to leak in terms of pictures. I don't recall the 5c being leaked much until v close to the release.

I'll be buying the 4.7, and my shares look forward to both the 4.7 and the 5.5 (and maybe a 5s speed bump) selling like crazy impossible

 

[neutrino23]

this is what i say everyone someone says "too bad it's not made in USA". the workforce doesn't exist here. the unemployed are either casualties of the recession who had desk jobs that it turned out were completely worthless, or they are just so unskilled or unreliable to hold down any kind of job. or unwilling to do the work that is out there. it would be a complete nightmare to try to hire people to build iphones in the U.S. in China they will line up to do it and do a good job at it

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.

 

[RJCP]

Wow. Suddenly hiring 100,000 people - SKILLED and RELIABLE people, suddenly, to build one thing, is impressive to say the least. I can't even imagine how that could ever happen in the US. I can't even imagine 10,000 in the US. I can't even begin to speculate how different things are over there for the conditions to allow such a thing. Maybe people who have been there can understand. I cannot understand.

The point is they're NOT skilled or reliable:
- iPhone 5, 5C and 5S flickering display issues; loosely assembled displays; scuff-gate
- iPad Air and iPad mini retina: misplaced magnets, display issues, logic board assembly problems....

All of these vastly documented on the forums here. They may be hiring thousands of people but the fact remains that they don't have the time to train them properly in assembling high precision devices. Add to this that the new iPhone will have a new design and Foxconn is probably still perfecting their manufacturing techniques for the device.
I will wait until December/January to get mine because they first batches are likely to be a bag of hurt.

 

[macs4nw]

That is a staggering amount of workers, to basically house, feed, and educate in such a short time, and sort of hits home as to the scale of manufacturing Apple's most profitable product line.

I know it's not a fair comparison, but could you imagine GM hiring 100,000 additional workers because a new car is coming out in October?

In addition to being acutely aware of the pent-up demand out there for a larger iPhone, Tim seems determined to have a better supply pipeline this holiday season, than has been the case the past few years with various other products.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

It's funny, we are all worried that robots will someday take all of our jobs. In China, it's actually cheaper to use human labor to do such things... The cost of keeping that many robots online is much more than paying these poor saps a very minimum wage.

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.

 

[Fionn2003]

The point is they're NOT skilled or reliable:
- iPhone 5, 5C and 5S flickering display issues; loosely assembled displays; scuff-gate
- iPad Air and iPad mini retina: misplaced magnets, display issues, logic board assembly problems....

All of these vastly documented on the forums here. They may be hiring thousands of people but the fact remains that they don't have the time to train them properly in assembling high precision devices. Add to this that the new iPhone will have a new design and Foxconn is probably still perfecting their manufacturing techniques for the device.
I will wait until December/January to get mine because they first batches are likely to be a bag of hurt.

You do realize that most of these workers only do 1 thing and throw it down the line. They don't build the whole unit. It's not hard to train a technician to do a repetitious task over and over again.

 

[sanook997]

Straw man argument, no one will see it as innovative (ruling out the jokers who will say that to pull your chain )
I see it as catching up. Apple missed the ball on this one by a couple of years, as use of smartphones moved from principally calls, to principally screen based.

I guess those who are anti large screen are so principally because they think it deprives them of their smaller screen lets say 5s size or even 4s. They couldn't possibly be controlling enough to want to stop those who want a bigger screen getting one could then?

It's interesting there haven't been any rumours of a new 5s size. I suppose they could do that as a speed bump with the internals so there is nothing to leak in terms of pictures. I don't recall the 5c being leaked much until v close to the release.

I'll be buying the 4.7, and my shares look forward to both the 4.7 and the 5.5 (and maybe a 5s speed bump) selling like crazy impossible

Couldn't agree with you more regarding Apple missing the boat on the 4" screen. I think they were simply to USA centric and didn't see the tsunami brewing in the East, the large screens are and have been quite the rage here in Asia.

 

[femike]

I flinch a little every time I see that huge bezel at the top. I mean sure the bottom part is necessary to accommodate touch ID, but why keep that huge area at the top? just for symmetry?

I prefer good symetrical bezels at top and bottom so that when its in landscape mode I can hold the phone firmly with either the left or right hand. I cannot do that as well when a phone has thin asymetric bezels with capacitive buttons. So, I am all in favour of Apple's design choice.

 

[sanook997]

You do realize that most of these workers only do 1 thing and throw it down the line. They don't build the whole unit. It's not hard to train a technician to do a repetitious task over and over again.

Correct, they are not skilled labor jobs, it is very very difficult to find highly skilled labor in Asia.

These are at best semi skilled jobs that are boring and repetitive, every move has been analyzed and preplanned by human factors engineering, you are as someone else described basically a human robot.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

As far as the top bezel... sure it would be great if they shrunk it but the earpiece, flash, and other sensors need to be placed some where.

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.

Then they went the opposite of sleek with the clunky brick shape, & here we are 5 generations later, and they still haven't done anything that feels futuristic.

This new phone is finally catching up to where iPhone 1 & 2 left off, design-wise.

 

[sanook997]

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.

Very interesting, sadly quite accurate for mass un or semi skilled labor. But not true for real skilled labor, a valuable commodity anywhere in the world.

btw: I live in Asia but have land in Durango....talking to builders now. Can't wait to get my Jeep back out on the trails.

 

[jcaro]

.
Damn, that huge ugly bezel. Same for 8 years. This is Forstall-like in the lack of innovation.



.

And somehow those GIANT bezel's continue to set record sales year after year after year while those tiny bezeled phones just drift off into obscurity. Maybe the Fandroids got it wrong. Maybe the Fandroids need a phone with GIANT bezel's.

 

[Narien]

I know this has been beaten to death, but it sure would be nice to see the government(s) work with schools and companies like Apple to develop this scale of manufacturing in the US. If workers need training, give it to them. Build a huge infrastructure in a certain part of the country to allow us to compete with Asia. There are challenges to be met, but we have millions out of work here. Mobile manufacturing isn't a fad. It would be an Apollo scale project, but we did that pretty well.

Work with schools? I think the school system is screwing up enough things already. These manufacturing plants doesn't require an education, at most it requires the skill to fit the ball into the circle and the cube into the square hole.

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.

 

[hotpotato123]

The cost of keeping that many robots online is much more than paying these poor saps a very minimum wage. To keep this post apolitical, I'll stop here.

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.

 

[Grolubao]

Those bezels... Yesterday I held a Note 3 and damn, there's almost no bezels there, maybe Apple should learn something

 

[iOSaddict]

Not a great display of self awareness and personality.

Enough self-awareness and personality to not buy Android, after having been through a few models.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Get then up at midnight, give them a cup of tea and a biscuit, then have them work a 12 hour shift until their ready to jump out the window.

 

[iOSaddict]

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.

Then they went the opposite of sleek with the clunky brick shape, & here we are 5 generations later, and they still haven't done anything that feels futuristic.

This new phone is finally catching up to where iPhone 1 & 2 left off, design-wise.

Still remember when the iphone 4 and 4s were the best-looking handsets in the market while other competitors' models looked chunky, thick and heavy.

 

[Getafe]

I know this has been beaten to death, but it sure would be nice to see the government(s) work with schools and companies like Apple to develop this scale of manufacturing in the US. If workers need training, give it to them. Build a huge infrastructure in a certain part of the country to allow us to compete with Asia. There are challenges to be met, but we have millions out of work here. Mobile manufacturing isn't a fad. It would be an Apollo scale project, but we did that pretty well.

Sounds perfect doesn't it? Problem is Apple wouldn't wanna spend more on labor than they already do. They would rather China build their phone for much cheaper wages than they woud HAVE to offer in the USA. USA has minimum wages and higher standards, China shamefully don't. Cheap labor they call it.

 

[gnasher729]

Lol at that. I would be more than happy to pay slightly more for an American made iPhone.

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?

 

[mejsric]

Those bezels... Yesterday I held a Note 3 and damn, there's almost no bezels there, maybe Apple should learn something

i tried too yesterday... and ***** those no bezels... i keep hitting the back or menu button much more when playing game in landscape...