Apple, America, and Jobs

This is a summary of an article posted on the NYTimes.com.

The article starts off with mentioning an interesting question asked by President Obama at a dinner in California last February. President Obama asked Mr. Jobs, "What would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Why can't that work come home?" Mr. Jobs' answer was ambiguous, however through further research, the authors who wrote this article were able to explain why the iPhone isn't made or assembled in the United States.

First reason is that Apple's executives believe the overseas factories are more flexible, and have workers that are willing to work at any time of the day. Almost all 700,000 people, who work as Apple contractors, engineer for foreign companies in Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world.

Chinese factories have been known to handle issues where Apple had redesigned the glass screen for the iPhone at the last minute. The screens arrived late at night; the foreman at the factory immediately asked 8,000 workers who resided in the company's dormitories to start assembling the new screens on the iPhone, so the phones can be delivered for sale. Speed and flexibility is a key attribute that workers in China have that no company or factory in U.S. could ever have.

Growing companies argue that instead of creating jobs for the Americans, the company believes it should be generating profit to keep paying for innovation.

The article mentions Corning Inc, the company in which the glass screens for iPhone are made, received orders from several different major companies asking to build the glass screens for their devices, which in turn, soar the company to making more than $700 million a year. The company hired 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market. However, their main factories are located overseas next to the assembly factories. The company argues that it is cheaper for them to build a factory near the assembly factory, instead of making the glass in the U.S. and shipping it overseas. The cost of shipping via air is expensive, and the cost of shipping via boat takes too long.

Mr. Saragoza was laid off by Apple when new equipment came in that replaced humans. Saragoza faced many hardships finding a reliable job that would support his family. His credentials were too expensive for an unskilled job, but insufficient for a high-level job. After working several jobs, Saragoza was contacted by Mrs. Lin, project manager at PCH International who contracts for Apple, told him that there are a lot of jobs in Shenzhen.

With Apple's great success comes the great payday, today shareholders are receiving a significant amount of money for investing money into Apple. Mr. Cook's salary is $1.4 million. 

Apple's call centers are located in the U.S., so for that demand, many shipping carriers have increased the amount of workers in their company to take on the work supplied by Apple.

At the end of the dinner, Mr. President and Mr. Jobs exchanged a few words about possible solutions to this economic problem. Jobs had a few suggestions. Perhaps the government should allow foreign engineers easy access to U.S. visa. The president should give "tax holiday" which in turn could create work. Jobs suggested if the government helped train American engineering, then it could be possible for Apple products to be built in the U.S. also.

The article ends with an Apple executive presenting a driving game to Mr. Jobs.