“Designed in California, made in China.” Will that ever change? [Updated: explanatory video]

I’m sure some of you have wondered. Apple designs all its products in Cupertino, California; but with the exception of the A5 processor which is manufactured in Texas, all other components and products are manufactured and assembled in China . And since Apple has so much money in its coffers… why don’t you do your country a favor by moving all that process to the United States? With the crisis we have on our hands and the increase in the market that the company is experiencing, it would be a smart move.

The most widely heard argument is that Chinese labor is cheaper, and that an iPhone made in the United States would be much more expensive. These are not false arguments, but the New York Times has shown that these arguments are not the main reasons why Apple refuses to hire American labour. It was in fact Barack Obama who asked Steve Jobs to move workers from China to the United States at a dinner with several top executives from the world of technology, and Steve replied strongly that it was impossible.

“Designed in California, made in China.” Will that ever change? [Updated: explanatory video]
“Designed in California, made in China.” Will that ever change? [Updated: explanatory video]

So what are the main reasons why Apple products have to be manufactured in China? Mainly demographics. Then, productivity. And finally, Steve Jobs himself . Let’s take a closer look after the jump.

Let’s put the data that the New York Times has launched on the table: Apple employs 230,000 workers in China who manufacture its products . To give us an idea, this workforce could occupy cities like Gijón almost entirely. There are only 83 cities with more than 230,000 inhabitants in the United States, and we are comparing workers in a factory with the entire population of a city. If we compare the workforce strictly speaking, the number of American cities with that number of staff is reduced to fifty.

TUAW sets the example of New York, the most populous city in the United States with over eight million inhabitants. If all the workers in the Apple factories lived in New York, they would make up 3% of the entire working population. In other words, three out of every hundred New Yorkers would work at Apple. A very high percentage. The conclusion is that no city in the United States would be able to keep up with Apple’s assembly rate .

Then we have the M.O. of those workers. A quarter of these 230,000 workers live and work in the factories, working 12-hour days, six days a week, for $17 a day. It is something scandalous in the West, but even though it seems like a lie in China it is a very demanded job . According to Jennifer Rigoni, a former Apple resource demand manager, manufacturing companies like Foxconn could hire three thousand people in a single day. The result is an efficiency unimaginable in countries like the United States, where the same quality review work done in nine months can be done in fifteen days in China. And not because of the manpower, but because of the qualifications of the US engineers. In China it is much higher.

TUAW> New York Times

A little over a month before the launch of the first iPhone, the phone had the same plastic material on the front as the iPod. It was scratched a lot (all 5G iPod owners will agree), and when Jobs realised that, he asked for the impossible: he wanted all iPhones with a glass front before they were launched . It meant redesigning and changing one component of the iPhone. Six weeks before the launch. With an impressive demand from customers at the time. Applying the change to millions of units. Who made it possible? China.

With everything that has happened in the assembly plants, Apple is already making great efforts to ensure the rights of all its Chinese workers. It is in fact the first technology company to wear the Fair Labor Association’s distinction, and it often reports on the official website on the progress of assembly plant workers’ rights. Since Cupertino, they have everything they need in the factories of that country: a very large workforce, preparation and efficiency impossible in the United States, and a capacity to react that only managers like Steve Jobs dare to demand. In any case, let’s remember that Foxconn is planning to expand into Brazil, so these qualities may not be exclusive to Asia’s most populous country.

UPDATE : Here’s a video from the New York Times, commenting on the phenomenon:

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