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Why worry about Chinese workers making iPhones, eventually robots will be making them anyway. In addition most of the value of an iPhone is in the design and m
by learc83 15y ago
Why worry about Chinese workers making iPhones, eventually robots will be making them anyway.
In addition most of the value of an iPhone is in the design and marketing, which is primarily done in the U.S.
- potatolicious 15y agoMost of the perceived value of an iPhone is in the design and marketing. But surely the employment value of an iPhone is still largely in the manufacturing. How many employees at Apple do you think is directly involved in the design and marketing of it? Versus the number of Foxconn employees building it?
- _delirium 15y agoI think he meant a third thing, the monetary value. Of every $500 you pay for an iPhone, only $180 goes to China for manufacturing.
- learc83 15y agoThose jobs couldn't exist in the US. The article said Foxconn has 200,000 workers assembling iPhones. The average wage for a factory worker in China is ~$200 (according to a quick Google search). That's $40 million per month, now move those employees to the US and it's going to cost around 20 times that. Close to a billion dollars a month to employee an equivalent number of US citizens. The iPhone couldn't exist at those prices.
- keithpeter 15y agoSo in a generation or so, those jobs won't exist in China either. People won't stand still, and they want better for their children. Robots?
- learc83 15y agoThat is exactly what will happen. Robots will eventually replace nearly all manual labor.
- encoderer 15y agoi think you didn't read the article? They cited a study that claimed that since the majority of iphone cost is materials and logistics, making it in america would only add $65 to the production cost of a single phone. But the real barrier is that making all the screws, the gaskets, etc, is all overseas and it would be prohibitive to have to ship those raw materials. And sure, to make ALL those things -- American all the way down -- would be quite expensive. But nobody is advocating for more american factories making screws.
- learc83 15y ago>making it in america would only add $65 to the production cost of a single phone. I did read the article. I wasn't talking about total money to make an iPhone in the US; I was talking about total money to employ 200,000 workers. Sure we could make it in the US, but it wouldn't add anywhere near 200,000 workers. The OP was talking about employment value.
- jellicle 15y ago> making it in america would only add $65 to the production cost of a single phone This is false. Making it in America would remove $65 (if that was indeed the figure, which is very doubtful) from the profit of the device. The price wouldn't change. Product pricing has nothing to do with the cost to make it, but is instead whatever the market will bear.
- 15y ago
- matwood 15y agoWhy worry about Chinese workers making iPhones, eventually robots will be making them anyway. Yep. When people complain about losing US manufacturing they are really complaining about losing US manufacturing jobs. Sure, manufacturing output is growing in China, but it's also still growing in the US. Automation is what has killed the US manufacturing job and not offshoring.