Intel is investing $7 billion over the next two years to improve U.S. based manufacturing facilities, and in the process will create 7,000 new high-wage jobs in this country. The only question will be - can we find qualified workers in the U.S. to fill these high-tech jobs? I certainly hope so. If the United States is to stay economically competitive, we need more than service jobs. We need high-tech manufacturing jobs. It is time for Apple to follow Intel's lead and bring some of these jobs back to our own shores.
And please don't tell me it can't be done...that companies *need* to manufacture overseas to stay competitive. That is a load of crap. You can buy a quality espresso maker made in Italy that costs only $100 more than a crappy one made in China. You can buy an electric toothbrush (Oral-B) made in Germany for the same price as one made in China. And you can still buy a few things made in this country that are well made and priced competitively.
Apple, please "think different" and consider investing more in America. You'll share some of your obscene wealth with American workers, and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time. Imagine if your labels said "Designed and Assembled in California". How cool would that be?
3 comments:
Most of the Oral-B is actually manufactured in Ireland (See www.MailMeDental.com for info), but it doesn't ruin your point - you're absolutely right.
You make an interesting point, but let's not forget a few really important things here:
- Apple has been RAPIDLY opening up hundreds of retail stores all across America, bringing thousands of new jobs to Americans every year since 2001. They are one of the few companies that has been expanding their employee base in America over the last several years.
- While other American companies are laying off people by the tens of thousands in these tough economic times, Apple hasn't even fired their janitor. This is a recent quote by Steve Jobs: "We’ve had one of these [recessions] before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren't going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place - the last thing we were going to do is lay them off."
- Apple, over the last 10 years, has become a finely-tuned, well-oiled, and PROFITABLE machine cranking out wildly popular & wildly innovative products. This is thanks to their factories in China, which they have invested a lot of money in. A few things I'd like to say about these factories in China:
a) If Apple were to shutter these factories and bring these manufacturing jobs back to America, just for the sake of bringing back jobs to American soil, it could potentially destroy what has become one of the best-operating companies in America to this day.
b) Unlike other companies, Apple ensures that the humans in these factories are treated PROPERLY. You can read about Apple's stance on social responsibility, in depth, on this page: http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/
When Apple heard that there was a potential breach in supplier responsibility at one of their China factories, Apple IMMEDIATELY went to China to investigate. It turned out to be a false alarm.
c) I think the REAL atrocity is taking place at companies that export labor which could EASILY -- with the flick of a wrist -- be brought back to America. I'm talking about all those customer service representatives in India who now answer the phones for companies like American Airlines, Amazon.com, Dell, Intuit, and so on. The decision to do that brought POORER CUSTOMER SERVICE to customers AND DESTROYED AMERICAN JOBS. Bringing those jobs back to America would be significantly easier & beneficial than recreating a billion-dollar factory in America.
Enough talk.
I agree that Apple could bring these jobs back, but it could in the end not benefit our economy.
The idea of bringing the customer service jobs back would make a much larger impact as those were the majority lost.
The Obama supporters were die hard and well organized. Being one, I am not a euphoric follower and do not agree with most of what is going on, I saw how much heart Americans have and what they can do when there is a cause.
How can we create a 'boycott' if you will, to get the jobs back? Do we need the politicians to push the lobbyists to push the big corporations to back out of contracts with the companies until they bring jobs back? How could we take a first step???
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