If you can remember, back in January Spark News published an article that discussed how sending work overseas was about more than just money. In that article, we talked about how large companies in America were outsourcing their work to other countries or completely moving their business overseas. In that article we specifically talked about Apple and why they decided to move the majority of their manufacturing to other countries. However, in opposition to what they seemed to have said before, Apple is now claiming that they have created a vast amount of jobs in America in a report released suspiciously close to the release of the third generation iPad.
The report recently released by Apple included data that was collected by a consulting firm called Analysis Group. The data was used to show that Apple has generated a total of 514,000 jobs in the United States across all 50 states. Though they claim to have only 47,000 directly employed Americans, their products have generated many more jobs all over the country. According to the report, 304,000 of those jobs they created range from positions held in manufacturing, engineering and transportation while the other 210,00 are related to the iOS application. The jobs they claim even include the delivery person that delivers your iProduct to your door. Furthermore, the company claims that its American employee-base has more than quadrupled in the past ten years.
Not at all to say that these figures are untrue, but it does seem as though Apple is dancing to a very different tune than the one they were humming just months ago. In the recent Spark News article on outsourcing, we discussed a dinner that Steve Jobs had with Obama and many other important Silicon Valley figures. Obama had asked Steve Jobs what it would take to bring the jobs that they outsourced to other countries back to America. Steve Jobs’ response was simply that “those jobs aren’t coming back.” That was a bitter pill to swallow.
In fact, a current Apple executive wasn’t shy about giving his opinion on the company and the small amount of jobs it brings to this country in comparison to the jobs it brings other countries. His response was, “we sell iPhones in over a hundred countries. We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” That was an even more difficult pill. So, it might have been safe to say that Apple was unconcerned with how many jobs it brought to this country because what truly mattered was their product. I came to terms with that fact, so this released study by Apple on the eve of the iPad 3 release is somewhat suspicious.
Is Apple taking a note from legislators and other companies by using jobs creation as a marketable ploy to get people on their side? Is this a public relations-based report that Apple is using as crutch to show that, “Hey, we do care about America and your job market?” I may be skeptical, but to me it seems as though the company has hopped on the jobs creation bandwagon that so many others have hopped on in order to gain more support and potential customers. Our country needs jobs and the people of this country want to be hired. It’s easy for legislators and companies to sway public opinion to their side by touting jobs creation and how their bill or product will facilitate increased growth in the job market. You know how I feel on that subject, but what do you think about this report or the jobs creation bandwagon in general? Do you think legislatures and companies are starting to use “jobs creation” as a marketable phrase to fuel their own endeavors?
SOURCE: Nasdaq
IMAGE: Courtesy of Apple Headlines
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