In the article Cook mentions, "Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States." He also mentioned that "The glass on this [i]phone is made in Kentucky. And we've been working for years on doing more and more in the United States." This seems like a great step for Apple because they are creating a significant number of jobs. However, they have to spend $100 million to do it. Apple is completely willing to pay this amount because they have a significant amount of cash. The bigger issue is why couldn't this be done sooner?
Cook believes that since people are not educated on how to manufacture anymore in school in the US, not many people possess the skills necessary to produce an iPhone or Mac. Is this about education or is it really about money? Paying a Chinese factory worker is much cheaper than paying an American factory worker. Although Cook said that Apple felt obligated to make jobs in the US because it is their "home market", is it really just a publicity stunt? Apple has had controversy about treatment of their workers overseas, so are they trying to clear some of the controversy by importing jobs to the US and treating workers well?
I believe Cook and Apple have good intentions but I'm skeptical and it seems suspicious that Apple is moving jobs to the US all of a sudden. I own multiple Apple products and have never really thought about the conditions of the workers that created my product. Quite frankly, as long as I don't know about the conditions, I don't really care, like many other consumers. And even if I saw that workers were being treated poorly, it would not prevent me from buying Apple's products. If a company producing shirts or shoes was treating their workers poorly, I may not buy their products, but since Apple's products are revolutionary and no company offers products of such quality, I would continue to buy Apple devices.
Do you feel that Apple is moving jobs to the US as a publicity stunt? Why? And does what a company produces affect whether or not a consumer will buy the product if the workers are being teated poorly?
I think that Apple is going to make computers here because they want to create some of their products in their home country and to save money. That's right; companies can save money be moving back to the US. The cost of shipping their computers maybe is greater from China because the majority of their computers are sold here. Also, with better manufacturing technology, cheap labor to build computers may actually be more expensive than a robot doing it, and a robot is more precise, improving quality. Although this move may be part of a publicity stunt, I think Apple is really doing it to increase their computer manufacturing efficiency.
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