The thrust is NOT "cheaper workers"...it is more complex than that.
This is a very long article with specific examples and it starts with a "conference" in which Apple president was asked by Obama why Apple couldn't move it's jobs back to the U.S. and was told "they will never come back".
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/bu...ewanted=1&_r=1
on the bottom of the second page:
In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.
A very big and good example of how Apple moved from the plastic Iphone face to glass.
Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match.
Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones.
The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
In China, it took 15 days.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
+++++++++++++
woodsmoke's comment:
The PROBLEM in the U.S. Education system is that those jobs are not GOOD enough.... the liberal elite professor says..
"Do you REALLY want to spend the rest of your life working in a.....factory!?
++++++++++++
lower down:
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility.
next page
The first time Eric Saragoza stepped into Apple’s manufacturing plant in Elk Grove, Calif., he felt as if he were entering an engineering wonderland.
It was a kaleidoscope of robotic arms, conveyor belts ferrying circuit boards and, eventually, candy-colored iMacs in various stages of assembly.
At the same time, however, the electronics industry was changing, and Apple — with products that were declining in popularity — was struggling to remake itself.
One focus was improving manufacturing.
A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories:
the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine.
In Singapore, it was $6.
In Taiwan, $4.85.
Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities.
Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.
“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”
But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees,
today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.
First, some of Elk Grove’s routine tasks were sent overseas. Mr. Saragoza didn’t mind.
Then the robotics that made Apple a futuristic playground allowed executives to replace workers with machines.
Some diagnostic engineering went to Singapore.
Middle managers who oversaw the plant’s inventory were laid off because, suddenly, a few people with Internet connections were all that were needed.
Mr. Saragoza was too expensive for an unskilled position. He was also insufficiently credentialed for upper management. He was called into a small office in 2002 after a night shift, laid off and then escorted from the plant. He taught high school for a while, and then tried a return to technology.
But Apple, which had helped anoint the region as “Silicon Valley North,” had by then
converted much of the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare call center, where new employees often earn $12 an hour.
++++++++++++++++
Woodsmoke again....
The HIGH SCHOOL teacher says sneeringly...."You want to flip burgers the rest of your life?"
While having NO CLUE that flipping burgers is an introductory level job to eventually OWNING a McDonalds and making a hundred thou a year....
So...I guess that the NEXT SNEER of the teachers will be: "Wanna work in a call center the rest of your life?"
+++++++++++++++++
next page:
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”
What’s more, Apple sources say the company has created plenty of good American jobs inside its retail stores and among entrepreneurs selling iPhone and iPad applications.
on the last page
one will see an example of what kind of really good writing is, in the very last sentence.
woodsmoke
This is a very long article with specific examples and it starts with a "conference" in which Apple president was asked by Obama why Apple couldn't move it's jobs back to the U.S. and was told "they will never come back".
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/bu...ewanted=1&_r=1
on the bottom of the second page:
In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.
A very big and good example of how Apple moved from the plastic Iphone face to glass.
Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match.
Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones.
The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
In China, it took 15 days.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
+++++++++++++
woodsmoke's comment:
The PROBLEM in the U.S. Education system is that those jobs are not GOOD enough.... the liberal elite professor says..
"Do you REALLY want to spend the rest of your life working in a.....factory!?
++++++++++++
lower down:
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility.
next page
The first time Eric Saragoza stepped into Apple’s manufacturing plant in Elk Grove, Calif., he felt as if he were entering an engineering wonderland.
It was a kaleidoscope of robotic arms, conveyor belts ferrying circuit boards and, eventually, candy-colored iMacs in various stages of assembly.
At the same time, however, the electronics industry was changing, and Apple — with products that were declining in popularity — was struggling to remake itself.
One focus was improving manufacturing.
A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories:
the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine.
In Singapore, it was $6.
In Taiwan, $4.85.
Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities.
Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.
“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”
But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees,
today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.
First, some of Elk Grove’s routine tasks were sent overseas. Mr. Saragoza didn’t mind.
Then the robotics that made Apple a futuristic playground allowed executives to replace workers with machines.
Some diagnostic engineering went to Singapore.
Middle managers who oversaw the plant’s inventory were laid off because, suddenly, a few people with Internet connections were all that were needed.
Mr. Saragoza was too expensive for an unskilled position. He was also insufficiently credentialed for upper management. He was called into a small office in 2002 after a night shift, laid off and then escorted from the plant. He taught high school for a while, and then tried a return to technology.
But Apple, which had helped anoint the region as “Silicon Valley North,” had by then
converted much of the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare call center, where new employees often earn $12 an hour.
++++++++++++++++
Woodsmoke again....
The HIGH SCHOOL teacher says sneeringly...."You want to flip burgers the rest of your life?"
While having NO CLUE that flipping burgers is an introductory level job to eventually OWNING a McDonalds and making a hundred thou a year....
So...I guess that the NEXT SNEER of the teachers will be: "Wanna work in a call center the rest of your life?"
+++++++++++++++++
next page:
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”
What’s more, Apple sources say the company has created plenty of good American jobs inside its retail stores and among entrepreneurs selling iPhone and iPad applications.
on the last page
one will see an example of what kind of really good writing is, in the very last sentence.
woodsmoke
Comment