Workers Making Apple IPhones Start at $3.15 Per Hour -- in China

Townhall.com ^ | May 15, 2019 | Terry Jeffrey

[Elsie]

Customers ended up shelling out monthly rent over a 20 year period and essentially paying hundreds of times the actual cost of the phone.

Now it's just set-top-boxes and WIFI routers that are done this way by your kindly ISP folks.

[Elsie]

"Running at full tilt, the factory here, owned and operated by Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn, can produce 500,000 iPhones a day," reported The Times.

Those Chinese sure have nimble fingers!

[oldtech]

In terms of cost-of-living how does that $3.15/hr. wage in China compare with U.S. prices & wages?

[dp0622]

You were overpaid.

:)

[dp0622]

OK that’s fine but then WTF are they a gazillion dollars?

The hysteria here in the US among corporations is a one dollar raise across the board equals a quadrillion dollars in hits to earnings.

#### em. Hit em with a tariff to sell them here.

I don’t give a #### what the different cost of living is.

Sounds like FR is swinging back to “free market at any cost” thinking.

That was quick.

The sad part is Trump would flip about this so why did those who this bothers so much, it being reported, vote or him?

[servantboy777]

>>Those Chinese sure have nimble fingers!<<

Yea...right? This was my bread and butter for years at a fortune 100 electronics corp., that is until our government allowed the greatest transfer of wealth in world history from the American middle class to communist China.

At least I can say, we didn’t have to place nets around the top of our buildings to keep workers from committing suicide from stress, low wages, constant 16 hour shifts.

Boycott Chinese goods y’all. Buy American made products.

[9YearLurker]

Do we know how many assembly hours there are per phone?

What I don’t get is why someone doesn’t make the case against globally shipping pollution costs on all this stuff made in Asia generally. We know lots of stuff gets mailed by the UN’s special developing-country rates for less than US products can be mailed domestically, which is an issue into urself, but so much gets shipped by massively pollutive freighter that no greenies should approve of.

[Sa-teef]

Chinese wages are already getting way over priced compared to some of their neighbors.

You think $3.15 per hour is low? Think $140 or $80 per MONTH in Cambodia and Myanmar.

The fabric mills are still spitting out the material in China but most of the rag trade is leaving for greener pastures. Low cost labor countries are constantly seeking new companies to come to their shores. Labor costs are low because the cost of living for their citizens are quite modest. So the people are happy to have the jobs which afford them a better standard of living than they would have back on the rural farm.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp

https://theaseanpost.com/article/minimum-wage-across-southeast-asia

Most of those trendy threads are assembled in South Central Asia or Southeast Asia because the labor costs are extremely low.

Some of the suburbs of Hanoi could be called "Samsung City" or "LG City" because of all the phones being assembled there. The parts are largely of Chines origin but final assembly, testing and packaging are done in Vietnam.

Prices aren't going down for name brand clothing and shoes in America, but the companies continue to search for the lowest cost assembly.

India, Vietnam, Myanmar. It's all about the cost of labor for these unskilled jobs which are not location dependent.

[nothingnew]

That $3.15 per hour is less than half the U.S. minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

So? I am one that does not care. Why should I? Communist China is still Communist China.

Screw'em.

FMCDH(BITS)

[bgill]

As much as I despise Apple, spit, one must ask what the average wage is there. I’m sure it’s all a wash.

[mowowie]

What is the deal with asians wearing surgical face masks?
Is it some kind of mass hysteria thing over germs.
My old asian neighbors wore those things every time they left the house.
What a way to live...

[central_va]

The TOTAL labor cost per iPhone is $16.00. Even if you made them in the USA the price would only go up $10.00 per phone. Combined with lower energy and shipping costs I'd say the $800 iPhone would still cost $800.00 if made in the USA.

Bring manufacturing home.

[central_va]

The should be made here. If you don’t agree then you are a Free Traitor™.

[bigbob]

Jack Welch once horrified people by half-seriously saying GE should build factories on big ships and just pull into harbor at whichever country had the cheapest labor at the time. The truth is not so much different for some manufacturing operations which are not capital-intense. For instance, garments. A factory full of sewing machines can be moved over a weekend.

[bagster]

he average price of a Big Mac in America is $4.62; in China its $2.74

In China, they call Chinese food.....food.

[bert]

I have learned from TV that the Chinese have as much of a problem eating noodles with chop sticks as I do.

[AmericanCheeseFood]

I’m curious when leftist crap news will actually notice that wages are on the rise in the U.s. and stop acting like the rest of the world needs our attention.

[Zhang Fei]

[The reality is, phones cost next to nothing to manufacture and phone companies do not pay very much for these phones. They sell them at exorbitant prices or charge customers monthly to have a phone. ]

---

Actually, Apple gets ~$700 a phone on which it nets about 25%, last I remember. The phone companies sell phones below cost, but tack on services to cover the remainder. Net margins on sales for Verizon, the most profitable operation? ~12%.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/financials?p=AAPL&.tsrc=fin-srch
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VZ/financials?p=AAPL&.tsrc=fin-srch

[Zhang Fei]

[OK that’s fine but then WTF are they a gazillion dollars?]

---

You’re paying for the very expensive miniature parts, which cost a lot because the very expensive machinery required to churn them out has to be paid for. However, once the now cutting edge machinery becomes common as dirt 10 years from now, current day models might be $20 a pop. But we’ll have moved on to the latest and greatest. I once remarked that LCD TV’s, which used to cost thousands for a 32” model, vs ~$400 for a 27” Sony tube TV, should eventually become far cheaper than tube TV’s for the same size, once the capital equipment for making LCD TV parts became commonplace. That’s because the tube TV had 60 lbs of materials in it vs the LCD’s 15 lbs.

[Sa-teef]

"...What is the deal with asians wearing surgical face masks? Is it some kind of mass hysteria thing over germs...."

----------------

In the factories it's very dusty (and Noisy if you ever visit one). They likely wear one to keep down the issues with inhaling all the dust and lint?

I asked "she who cooks my dinner" about the mask wearing on the street, they do it where I am retired quite often, and she said something along the same line: keeps out street dust and smells I guess? She said some ladies do it when they have a cold or flu so they don't spread it to others around them, but I'm not sure about that last part.

You see it all the time flying on airplanes with East Asians. I expect that is to prevent picking up disease from other travelers on crowded airplanes which is probably a good idea?