Gee would it be too much to ask that the start bringing their manufacturing back to the USA? I think not.
They’re already doing several product lines in the USA, right now ...
And “start bringing” ... is exactly what Apple has been doing ...
Why Apple Is Bringing Manufacturing Back To The United States
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmcquaid/2012/12/06/why-apple-is-bringing-manufacturing-back-to-the-united-states/
Today’s news from Tim Cook that Apple is bringing some Mac manufacturing from China back to the United States is encouraging for the first reason you’ll think of: it’s a tentative move to disengage from appalling labor practices at the company’s Chinese contractor, Foxconn, that tether anyone who owns an iPhone back to the developing world economy heart of darkness.
Apple manufacturing partner looks to build factory in the US
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101364554
Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, the main manufacturer of Apple products and a symbol of U.S. outsourcing, is reportedly weighing a plan to build an advanced display manufacturing facility in its largest market.
At the company’s 40th anniversary celebration on Sunday, Chairman Terry Guo said he is looking to relocate capital-intensive and high-tech manufacturing to the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported.
Automation, software and technology innovation will be our key focus in the U.S. in the coming few years,” Gou said, according to the WSJ.
Hon Hai, which is better known by the trade name Foxconn, draws an estimated 40-50 percent of its revenue from assembling gadgets and other work for Apple.
Apple wants to make products in U.S., but that’s not so easy
http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-wants-to-make-products-in-u-s-but-thats-not-so-easy/
Let’s make the iPhone in the good ol’ U. S. of A. Who’s with me?
There are few Americans who don’t like the idea of an all-American iPhone, iPad or MacBook. “Designed in California,” sure — but why not made there, too?
During the D: All Things Digital conference this week, Apple chief executive Tim Cook suggested that he wanted his celebrated tech company to make more components, and perhaps assemble them, here in the U.S.
But it’s not that easy.
Cook knows it. As a longtime operations guy, there are probably few things the man knows better than a supply chain. When he says the semiconductor industry is good in the U.S., it’s good. When he says there aren’t high-tech manufacturing skills in the U.S., he’s probably right. But actions speak louder than words, and there are good reasons why Apple no longer makes its millions upon millions of products stateside — because it just doesn’t make good business sense otherwise.
We’ve seen this film before. Before founder Steve Jobs died, he made headlines for the same reason, as the national economy crumbled beneath Apple.
Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times report in January:
It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
The reason: there’s a very real tradeoff between what’s good for workers and what’s good for business. When push comes to shove, business wins — which is why Apple’s American employees enjoy comparatively nice perks while employees of its supply chain partners live in 8,000-strong dormitories, ready to be woken up at midnight to start a 12-hour shift making new parts for an iPhone that received last-minute design changes from California.
Imagine trying to do the same with an American worker. Unions would never stand for it, obviously, and chances are the rest of the family unit wouldn’t, either.
My point is not to illustrate the benefits and drawbacks of unions, or even what’s fair; rather, I’m trying to illustrate a landscape in which American companies can go overseas for greater flexibility, lower price and sheer speed. So long as there are nations in this world willing to do work others aren’t, outsourcing will exist. In the capitalist system, businesses can’t win in the free market unless they exploit every advantage.
There’s a reason Apple, and GE, and many other well-regarded American companies keep most of their money offshore: so long as there’s a cheaper alternative, it will be taken. There is no morality in money-making, even if there’s still plenty to be made.
(Speaking of GE, that company has run into similar issues — though for refrigerators and turbines, not computers.)
That’s not to say things aren’t changing. GE CEO Jeff Immelt has said that the U.S. is becoming more competitive as American firms, tired of decades of deterioration, snap to attention. Wages in the U.S. are still elevated — good for individuals but bad for business — but the skills, flexibility and speed are catching up.
The skills and education aren’t here in the USA to do that. It’s going to take a better education system and better skilled workers. The USA just doesn’t “have it” any longer. It will take a while to get those kinds of workers back here ... OF COURSE we could import the skilled workers from overseas to work in the USA ... that would do it!
Apple will bring Mac manufacturing back to U.S. in 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2012/12/05/991497ac-3fa4-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html
“You can’t find that many in America to hire,” Jobs said. “If you could educate those engineers, we could move more manufacturing plants here,” according to the biography.
In a separate interview, NBC News anchor Brian Williams asked Cook what would happen, hypothetically, if Apple had to move all its production to the United States
“Honestly, it’s not so much about price, it’s the the skills, etc. Over time, there are skills that are associated with manufacturing that have left the U.S. Not necessarily people, but the education system stopped producing them. It’s a concerted effort to get them back,” Cook said.
Exactly HOW MANY TIMES do you have to be told Apple is the ONLY computer manufacturer that actually DOES make computers in the USA????
Apple makes the Apple Mac Pro in Austin, Texas and assembles the Apple iMacs in Elk Grove, California. WAKE UP AND PAY ATTENTION!
Many of the parts of the iPhones and iPads are made in the USA also. Can you say the same about your Samsung or LG phones?