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This is beyond pathetic. Who exactly are Apple trying to impress with this? To summarise, they highlight 514k US jobs created of supported by Apple. Now the tw

This is beyond pathetic. Who exactly are Apple trying to impress with this? To summarise, they highlight 514k US jobs created of supported by Apple. Now the two operative word in that sentence is "US", and "supported". 1. Direct jobs created for US citizens who are on Apple's payroll is a fraction of this. (47k), so about 9%. 2. They say US jobs, because do you realise how much they outsource? I personally don't have a major issue with outsourcing. Go where ever the labour is cheap. (And in Apples defence they do try and stay as transparent as possible with Foxconn and employee treatment ethics). Obama asked Jobs directly once, "what will it take to bring Apple manufacturing back to the States". That is never going to happen. But again, I don't have an issue with that, but spinning their profiteering into philanthropy is utter crock-shit. Do you realise the jobs they are listing within their "supporting" grouping? - Business Sales - Healthcare - Customer Sales - Transportation Who are they including in this? BestBuy employees? The 40% of private Doctors that now say they use as iPad professionally and the FedEx employees who ship the goods on overnight freight? I'm just suprised they left off the pilots who carry the cargo. They could have squeezed another 400 jobs into that number for sure. Ultimately, 99% of these people all had jobs before Apple. The truck driver delivered his goods. The healthcare professional was still practicing and the salesmen were still selling. (How by the way does Apple create healthcare jobs?) Don't read this for anything more than it is. PR bullshit. Do you know what Apple doesn't want? Some campaign runner trying to decrease US unemployment numbers by saying that the largest US technology company needs to start employing more people. This is a pre-emptive PR measure.

quesera 15y ago
You are not making sense. Apple sells more product outside the US, too, so who's to begrudge them having a large percentage of employees overseas? The rest of your accounting complaints are simply not true. If Apple represents 1% of UPS delivery business, they can rightfully claim to have created 1% of the UPS delivery person jobs. And of course it's PR. It's PR designed to counteract some clueless congresspeople asking for economic impossibilities from a very visible US success story. But it's honest PR. Such things do exist.
- chrisacky 15y ago
  > ...so who's to begrudge them having a large percentage of employees overseas? Absolutely nothing. I have zero issue with having overseas employees. I'm not even American. The point and issue I was trying to address is that they are trying to cast themselves in some golden light as being the crusader of US employment, when a vast majority of jobs which could be brought back to the US aren't. I would love to agree in that it is honest PR, perhaps if the word hyperbolic was put in the middle that might be true. Because they have clearly stretched these numbers quite considerably. As one commenter adds below, why not include the farmer who feeds the cows, who feeds the truck driver?
- pm90 15y ago
  You are right that its PR, but please don't argue about it being "Honest". The common use of the term "Creating Jobs" is only those "directly employed" by your company (i.e on your company's payroll). In this context, including other indirect jobs is misleading and hence dishonest. ( I would also argue that perhaps the right way to present information to congressmen requires one to have the patience to sincerely explain to them what the situation really is rather than deliberately misleading them)
  - quesera 15y ago
    This is the point, though. I agree that the layman's interpretation of "created or supported" isn't necessarily the same as the formal definition of the terms by the US govt, but criticizing Apple for using the formal definition isn't reasonable. The intent of the formal definition is to answer the question "what would be the impact on US employment if this business were to cease operation tomorrow?", and I believe that Apple has made an honest effort to compute that number, probably rather conservatively. Perhaps you disagree, but you seem to be arguing against semantic interpretation of the terminology, instead of being skeptical of the results. In response to your point about how to present this data to congresspeople, I'd argue that while there are some legitimate economic dunces in elected office, there are few that don't comprehend the cascade effect of business activity and therefore employment. Furthermore, I doubt that any congressperson would consider Apple's use of "create or support" to be misleading, because it is absolutely the standard usage of the term in these sorts of assessments. That does not, of course, mean that some senator who smells television coverage won't take notice of the confusion and grandstand his or her condescension for his or her electorate. It might even be a successful strategy, but we don't have to help. Obviously I haven't audited the numbers. That's a valid line of inquiry, but history shows Apple to be fastidiously circumspect in such matters. There's a new sheriff in town in Cupertino, but if anything he seems to be even more careful.

quesera 15y ago

You are not making sense. Apple sells more product outside the US, too, so who's to begrudge them having a large percentage of employees overseas? The rest of your accounting complaints are simply not true. If Apple represents 1% of UPS delivery business, they can rightfully claim to have created 1% of the UPS delivery person jobs. And of course it's PR. It's PR designed to counteract some clueless congresspeople asking for economic impossibilities from a very visible US success story. But it's honest PR. Such things do exist.

chrisacky 15y ago
> ...so who's to begrudge them having a large percentage of employees overseas? Absolutely nothing. I have zero issue with having overseas employees. I'm not even American. The point and issue I was trying to address is that they are trying to cast themselves in some golden light as being the crusader of US employment, when a vast majority of jobs which could be brought back to the US aren't. I would love to agree in that it is honest PR, perhaps if the word hyperbolic was put in the middle that might be true. Because they have clearly stretched these numbers quite considerably. As one commenter adds below, why not include the farmer who feeds the cows, who feeds the truck driver?
pm90 15y ago
You are right that its PR, but please don't argue about it being "Honest". The common use of the term "Creating Jobs" is only those "directly employed" by your company (i.e on your company's payroll). In this context, including other indirect jobs is misleading and hence dishonest. ( I would also argue that perhaps the right way to present information to congressmen requires one to have the patience to sincerely explain to them what the situation really is rather than deliberately misleading them)
- quesera 15y ago
  This is the point, though. I agree that the layman's interpretation of "created or supported" isn't necessarily the same as the formal definition of the terms by the US govt, but criticizing Apple for using the formal definition isn't reasonable. The intent of the formal definition is to answer the question "what would be the impact on US employment if this business were to cease operation tomorrow?", and I believe that Apple has made an honest effort to compute that number, probably rather conservatively. Perhaps you disagree, but you seem to be arguing against semantic interpretation of the terminology, instead of being skeptical of the results. In response to your point about how to present this data to congresspeople, I'd argue that while there are some legitimate economic dunces in elected office, there are few that don't comprehend the cascade effect of business activity and therefore employment. Furthermore, I doubt that any congressperson would consider Apple's use of "create or support" to be misleading, because it is absolutely the standard usage of the term in these sorts of assessments. That does not, of course, mean that some senator who smells television coverage won't take notice of the confusion and grandstand his or her condescension for his or her electorate. It might even be a successful strategy, but we don't have to help. Obviously I haven't audited the numbers. That's a valid line of inquiry, but history shows Apple to be fastidiously circumspect in such matters. There's a new sheriff in town in Cupertino, but if anything he seems to be even more careful.