Robotic Apple Assemblers Ping!
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Posted on 01/27/2015 10:49:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Foxconn, a supplier for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), has announced that it’s cutting its workforce.
The exact number of employees that will be affected by the Foxconn layoffs hasn’t been announced. The company also hasn’t said when the layoffs will go into effect. The job cuts come as the company faces higher wages in China and less revenue growth, reports Reuters.
The Foxconn layoffs are also likely affected by the company’s desire to replace workers with robots. The use of robotic arms in some parts of the company’s work will allow the company to replace workers that were performing simple tasks, Reuters notes.
The Foxconn layoffs comes as Apple is expected to announce record iPhone sales, with the possibility that it sold more phones in China than the United States, reports MacRumors.
The Foxconn layoffs comes as Apple is expected to announce record iPhone sales, with the possibility that it sold more phones in China than the United States, reports MacRumors.
When a company makes a decision about where to locate its production facilities, a big part of that decision involves the locations of its customers. This is the untold story about "outsourcing" of manufacturing from the U.S. to Asia over the years. It's not just the lower costs that drove these manufacturers to Asia. It's the larger customer base.
Someone needs to create an IL-logic gate to model any Democrat's "thought processes."
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I see this a net positive for social values.
Slavery is wong.
Are those workers forced to work there?
By the way, for those only a little technically inclined, far better products can be bought and used for next to nothing. Not all rich folks are monopolists bent on stampeding the herds with tales of robots and global disaster fiction. Some have really turned out to be great benefactors, helping many others to design many great, new tools.
The other day I was taking apart some HP PC components. Hmmn, Foxconn name is all over the parts. So that title should be modified as:
“Foxconn Layoffs: HP Supplier to Downsize Workforce [Desire to replace workers with robots]”
Or insert any computer manufacturer name. Foxconn makes stuff for everyone! It doesn't belong to Apple.
You’re right ... they make stuff for a lot of other well-known companies!
TZ - “The Brain Center at Whipple’s”?
No, that would be wong, as I stated in my post.
LOL
There are at least 100 countries with lower wages than China. That’s why I mentioned “comparative advantage”. In this case, what matters is productivity/dollar of wages. (Where productivity includes quality of the product.) To simplify somewhat, Chinese workers make 3 or 4 times more than Vietnamese workers (on average), because they each produce at least that many times more goods or services.
Is that a Freudian slip?
The workers at FoxConn Apple assembly lines were hired voluntarily. . . and are paid as much as the equivalent of $780 to $1300 a month when overtime is included. When FoxConn announces there are openings on the Apple assembly lines THOUSANDS of applicants apply for the jobs. Where is this "slavery"?
The pay is almost ten times the Chinese minimum wage levels of $140 per month that a shop worker gets in the city stores. . .
China Labor Watch, an activist organization, has shown conditions at factories that are NOT FoxConn, claiming they are FoxConn. . . and Micharl Daisey was caught faking translations in interviews with FoxConn workers to have them say things they actually did not say in his "Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" on NPR and they actually had to pull his program and issue an apology. The so-called "suicide problem" turned out to be really blown out of proportion when it was shown that there were only 18 suicides out of over 750,000 workers across FoxConn's 22 plants. . . in an 18 month period! The suicide rate was 1/4 the rate of the Chines population in general and 1/8 the rate of the same age cohort of 18 to 28 in the Chinese Population! It is also 1/2 the rate of suicides among people of that age group in AMERICAN IVY LEAGUE COLLEGES! In other words, you are far less likely to kill yourself as a worker at FoxConn than as a student at Yale or Harvard!
I believe you're thinking of the episode The Obsolete Man, starring Burgess Meredith and Fritz Weaver.
Not according to the reviewers. . . none of the Android phones or tablets can offer anything close to the iOS ecosystem, integration, or ease of use. As for cost? They cost about the same for flagship level handsets. Anything that is in the "next to nothing" on contract is older technology and definitely not competitive. NONE of them offer true 64 bit processors. . . and the Apple iPhone 6 is blowing the Android quad processor competition away on almost every bench mark with dual processors.
LOL
Geezus.
I would think my post demonstrates a certain sarcasm, without having to pin “/s” everytime.
And it’s still wong, to have slaves whose name is Wei Phuk Up...
Kinda like displacing Mexican crop pickers with automation and machines.
They can always get a job as a disciple, driving their buddies to Home Depot
As everyone knows, they were all in one Accord (Honda)...
That's because Apple controls both the software and hardware side, so iOS and the Ax series of system on a chip (SoC) are extremely optimized for each other. I do think, though, that the next versions of iOS and MacOS X coming this fall will likely be mostly bug fixes and code optimization, similiar to the Snow Leopard release of MacOS X.
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