Somebody will need to sweep the floor around the robots...

So basically he feels companies aren't obligated in any way for training their workforce. He kicks that to the government.

And maybe there would be more incentive to teach and learn these skills if you didn't have to move to China to get a job using them.

About the skills? What kind of education do you need to be the guy that glues on the screen in the assembly line?

"The announcement could be good news for a country that has been struggling with an unemployment rate of around 8 percent for some time..."

Odd turn of phrase for an American news agency story. Trying to sound "global"?!?

Are we sure it doesnt have anything to do with Chinese companies making 2 knock-offs which they sell for 1/10th the cost for every unit legitimate Apple product that gets made?

You send your best/newest/greatest technology to another country with, shall we say, a casual attitude toward piracy and greymarket goods and are surprised you can buy an iPhone clone on every street in Guangzhou?

king_nacho: Isn't one of the goals of the education system to produce employable individuals?

There are plenty of employable individuals.

Why does Apple get singled-out for criticism vis-a-vis Foxconn, when seemingly every major consumer electronics manufacturer also uses Foxconn?

Major customers of Foxconn include or have included:
Acer Inc.
Amazon.com
Apple Inc.
Cisco
Dell
Hewlett-Packard
Microsoft
Motorola Mobility
Nintendo
Nokia
Samsung Electronics
Sony
Toshiba
Vizio

When manufacturing jobs leave America: EVIL CORPORATIONS ARE SENDING AMERICAN JOBS TO CHINA!
When manufacturing jobs come to America: EVIL CORPORATIONS ARE TRYING TO TREAT AMERICAN EMPLOYEES LIKE CHINESE!

What the fark is wrong with you people?

There's a better story about a similar issue (with a similarly anti-business troll headline) from a couple days ago:

Talondel: When manufacturing jobs come to America: EVIL CORPORATIONS ARE TRYING TO TREAT AMERICAN EMPLOYEES LIKE CHINESE!

What the fark is wrong with you people?


Which people are you talking about?

king_nacho: abhorrent1: About the skills? What kind of education do you need to be the guy that glues on the screen in the assembly line?

you'd be surprised. Remember, a line worker at most auto plants makes around 70-80k a year, plus benefits, generally assembly plants are built in areas with a low cost of living.

This is not close to being true. This may have been true at the height of union power but i is closer to 25-30k now and even less for newer employees. When unions actually agreed to two tier pay systems to screw over new employees that signed their death warrant imo. Oh well, boomers gonna boom.

t3knomanser: The upshot: Apple takes steps to fix its image, which often involves correcting some of these issues, so it makes things better for everyone.

It also invalidates a lot of the excuses, "All our competitors are doing it, we have to do it too if we want to survive."

t3knomanser: Unlike most of those companies, Apple has a highly visible brand, and it's a brand that's largely built on image.

This may come as a shock to you, but every company is largely built on brand image.

Brostorm: This is not close to being true. This may have been true at the height of union power but i is closer to 25-30k now and even less for newer employees. When unions actually agreed to two tier pay systems to screw over new employees that signed their death warrant imo. Oh well, boomers gonna boom.

That's part of the problem. They want people with mechanical/industrial engineer education and experience to work for assembly line pay.

Marcus Aurelius: Uh-huh.

Math skills don't really come into plat with assembly line work.

I suspect they are really talking about teaching people to get to work on time and actually show up most days.

Grand_Moff_Joseph: "Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, Cook said he believes the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.

"The consumer electronics world was really never here," Cook said. "It's a matter of starting it here."

BULL SH*T.

Please, Mr. Cook, educate us as to what skills the average Chinese worker has that the average American worker cannot compete with.

Educate us as to how this is not a marketing/PR move to take advantage of the stories circulating in the news cycle about how some Macs have "Made in America" stamped on the back of them.

Random Anonymous Blackmail: Living on $2.50 a week.

But they get free housing.

king_nacho: The US Education system has been transformed with the idea that all of our people are creative types. Designers, engineers, writers, artists, etc. We can't have normal assembly line workers anymore. Oddly enough it is better of to produce a jobless painter than an employed assembly line worker.

Also, Caucasians are just to damned tall.

imashark: Grand_Moff_Joseph: "Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, Cook said he believes the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern mnufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
a
"The consumer electronics world was really never here," Cook said. "It's a matter of starting it here."

BULL SH*T.

Please, Mr. Cook, educate us as to what skills the average Chinese worker has that the average American worker cannot compete with.

Educate us as to how this is not a marketing/PR move to take advantage of the stories circulating in the news cycle about how some Macs have "Made in America" stamped on the back of them.

They're highly skilled at living on $2 a day and a handful of beans while working 30 hour days.

natazha: Marcus Aurelius: Uh-huh.

Math skills don't really come into plat with assembly line work.

I suspect they are really talking about teaching people to get to work on time and actually show up most days.

I thought at foxconn they lived in dorms and had no choice.

t3knomanser: digistil: This may come as a shock to you, but every company is largely built on brand image.

Brand image is very important for every company. But what that image means varies greatly- nobody views a Dell-branded computer as a desirable product. They view it as a _cheap_ product that's sufficient for many people. Their brand carries no particular cache. The image of their brand is important to them- they don't want a reputation for shoddy products or poor support (they have that reputation, but they don't want it).

Something made by Apple is more desirable _by virtue of being made by Apple_. And there are a lot of reasons why that's true, ranging from track record to marketing to industrial design.

I think most people who buy Dell because they already have and are afraid of change. They are very dependable and upgradable machines and still have an great reputation in the market place. We have a population of people who do not just switch to the whatever is trendy with the "youths" because it is shiny. So saying a brand like Dell is "cheap" or carries no cache is more fanboi-ish than fact.

Have fun beating it to pics of Steve Jobs.

Grand_Moff_Joseph: wxboy: Given that, why doesn't Apple leave China entirely and manufacture everything in the U.S.? "It's not so much about price, it's about the skills," Cook told Williams.

"Americans are idiots. Idiots who buy our products."

Nice try, but here's the answers you're looking for (bolded by me):

"Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, Cook said he believes the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.

"The consumer electronics world was really never here," Cook said. "It's a matter of starting it here."

This argument is bullshiat. I worked in an electronics manufacturing plant in the 90's. In fact a lot of your high end consumer electronics were built in plants in the U.S back then. And for 90% of the assembly line work all you need to know are your colors and right from left. These guys aren't operating any complicated machines, that is left up to the other 10%, and their job isn't all that difficult to learn itself. The reason why everything is built in China is not education, it is because they can pay people less and don't have to deal with worker safety regulations or environmental regulations.

MugzyBrown: HotWingConspiracy: So basically he feels companies aren't obligated in any way for training their workforce. He kicks that to the government.

And maybe there would be more incentive to teach and learn these skills if you didn't have to move to China to get a job using them.

Perhaps potential employees should take it on themselves to gain marketable skills rather than having to rely on an employer or the government

Tim Cook: the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes

If the entirety of the education system is as he says, where should these potential employees acquire these marketable skills? This is a BS fallback position so they can justify the outsourcing.

If you think for a second that those wage slaves in China show up knowing the job with no training, I don't have much to say. In house training benefits everyone. There is literally no downside for the company.

Doc Daneeka: Why does Apple get singled-out for criticism vis-a-vis Foxconn, when seemingly every major consumer electronics manufacturer also uses Foxconn?


For me, the big issue is that they routinely crow about the oodles and oodles and oodles of cash they have laying around, not being used. While I certainly applaud frugality in a business, it seems like you could spend just one oodle of that cash on an assembly plant somewhere in the U.S. Really, it seems like Apple could just up and buyout Detroit if they wanted to and turn it into an electronics assembly plant city if they wanted to.

And I don't believe the "skilled workforce" line in order to manufacture electronic devices. The people working the line at FoxCon aren't college educated technicians...they are desperate farm kids looking to make a meager few pennies for their families. I think that when they say "skilled workforce" they mean "a workforce who is scared to death of being shot if they take a bathroom break", or "a workforce that is allowed to dump heavy chemical waste into the nearby stream without ramifications."

Regardless, good on Apple for trying this endeavor.

DrewCurtisJr: That's part of the problem. They want people with mechanical/industrial engineer education and experience to work for assembly line pay.

This is a problem across multiple industries.
Did you see the article a few weeks back where they wanted welders for $10/hr ? $10/hr for a profession that will ruin your body in multiple ways by 40.
Or the one where the guy had something like 50 open positions, and out of 1000 applicants he hired 10, 7 of whom left? And he specifically didn't hire "union-types" who expected pay or benefits.
I've seen CS jobs that act like they're justified in paying minimum wage.
I've seen corporate franchisees require business degrees to manage a Hardee's for $12/hr.
I took a job for what I thought would be graphic design gruntwork designing NASCAR and college sports nicknacks and clothing. Turns out I was supposed to liaise with the NASCAR teams, individual colleges, and our sales clients (one of whom was Wal-Mart) to determine what sold well, what needed to be changed, and new products they might want, making sales presentations for the sales team, and, if I could, redo the company website. Pay? $9/hr. I took it out of desperation and was out in two weeks when I heard back from another interview.

It's disgusting. I know free-market, blah, blah.

king_nacho: The US Education system has been transformed with the idea that all of our people are creative types. Designers, engineers, writers, artists, etc. We can't have normal assembly line workers anymore. Oddly enough it is better of to produce a jobless painter than an employed assembly line worker.

Haha, what? What America are you in? Seems to me like the US education system has been dumbed down to the point that our children are being groomed for Walmart and McDonald's jobs. Kids can't pass the tests? No worries, we'll make them easier. Also, creativity isn't an looked at as an asset in our school systems, it's completely frowned upon and discouraged. They run our schools like prisons at this point and then wonder why the kids don't give a damn about learning. Not to mention the fact that we don't pay teachers shiat so the smart people that otherwise would teach follow the money to a different career.

Given that, why doesn't Apple leave China entirely and manufacture everything in the U.S.? "It's not so much about price, it's about the skills size of their tiny little yellow child fingers," Cook told Williams.

One thing this thread proves: Apple could hand out wads of cash to the poor and there would still be people on Fark who would lay on the hate.

Relax, folks. Your blood pressure will thank you.

Howlin Mad Murphy: king_nacho: The US Education system has been transformed with the idea that all of our people are creative types. Designers, engineers, writers, artists, etc. We can't have normal assembly line workers anymore. Oddly enough it is better of to produce a jobless painter than an employed assembly line worker.

Haha, what? What America are you in? Seems to me like the US education system has been dumbed down to the point that our children are being groomed for Walmart and McDonald's jobs. Kids can't pass the tests? No worries, we'll make them easier. Also, creativity isn't an looked at as an asset in our school systems, it's completely frowned upon and discouraged. They run our schools like prisons at this point and then wonder why the kids don't give a damn about learning. Not to mention the fact that we don't pay teachers shiat so the smart people that otherwise would teach follow the money to a different career.

^THIS

The US education system is built to service an industrial mindset. Children are taught things in an assembly manner -> this knowledge leads to layering this knowledge leads to layering this knowledge... Creativity is an afterthought, so much so that most of the programs that require creativity skills [fine art, music, etc] are being cut because of 'budgetary constraints.' In addition, teachers' pay and rewards are being linked to childrens' development in this layered knowledge. Teachers sure as hell aren't rewarded for encouraging creativity in children.

Thus I have to ask, why then, if we have this education system in America that prioritizes hard knowledge and skills, like math and science, why are our children so disengaged from their education? Ask any sixth through twelfth grade teacher, students are almost uniformly disinterested in their studies. There are those few bright ones that are engaged, but those are mostly outlier (and are usually the intellectually gifted anyway).

I wonder if that's because our primary education system is so disconnected from the skills that society and our culture truly value (such as creativity and problem solving), instead of those that the 'market desires' (such as memorization, assembling widgets, andnot rocking the boat).

/Tangent off