Posted on 08/25/2022 4:46:00 AM PDT by FarCenter
A 40-kilometer drive south from Kunming, the capital of China's southwestern Yunnan Province, recruiters are scrambling to find tens of thousands of workers to staff Wingtech Technology's expanded production facility, a sprawling campus that the company hopes will eventually supply Apple.
"We are recruiting aggressively. For phase two of the complex alone, we initially thought we needed to hire about 15,000 workers, but we just learned that the hiring target will have to increase to more than 20,000," a local recruiter told Nikkei Asia. "My colleagues and I are campaigning around many cities and schools in Yunnan and working with local governments to bring in more workforce."
Nestled at the base of a 1,920-meter plateau, the facility will eventually employ at least 30,000 people from only a few thousand at present, the recruiter said, citing Wingtech's plans.
The increased hiring reflects the massive ambitions of Wingtech. The Chinese smartphone assembler has quietly built up its manufacturing capabilities supplying domestic brands and is now looking to delve deeper into the supply chains of global giants like Apple and Samsung.
Covering more than 427,000 square meters -- or about 80 soccer fields -- the Kunming facility has produced tens of billions of yuan worth of smartphones and other products for China's Vivo, Oppo and others since operations began in July last year. Phase two of the complex, with a total investment of about 3 billion yuan ($437 million), is currently under construction. It will make notebook computers and smartphones, according to Nikkei Asia interviews with local employees, recruiters and government officials.
Wingtech's rise has been surprisingly rapid, according to industry insiders. It started supplying Apple less than a year ago after buying component maker O-Film Technology, and has already progressed to making Apple's Mac Mini desktop computer. It recently won orders to build an older generation of MacBooks at its Kunming facility, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter -- an impressive achievement given Apple's notoriously demanding quality standards.
"Wingtech is one of a few Chinese tech suppliers that Apple praised for fast technological progression. It is indeed an emerging player that we should not ignore," said an executive with an Apple supplier.
MacBooks are among the most advanced consumer notebooks available, and their production has long been dominated by leading Taiwanese contract electronics makers Quanta Computer and Foxconn. Other notable Taiwanese manufacturers, such as Compal Computer and Wistron, have never gained orders for Apple's iconic laptops despite supplying HP, Dell and Lenovo for decades. Wingtech already builds laptops for Samsung, Lenovo and Asustek Computer, multiple industry sources said.
China getting ready to put the squeeze on Apple.
—”China getting ready to put the squeeze on Apple.”
And Foxconn is a Taiwanese company.
Apple/Foxconn went into China and fatted up so much that they are trapped.
Didn’t an Apple employee just get busted by the feds for trying to sell their trade products to China?.
Even with 65 years of Accounting experience-—I am glad I do NOT have to do that payroll.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.