SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 15 submissions in the queue.
SoylentNews
Apple manufacturer Foxconn reckons it will create one million jobs in India by 2020 – nearly the entire number of its current Chinese workforce – according to reports.
Hon Hai otherwise known in the West as Foxconn, last month revealed it was setting its sights on India due to increasing wage costs in China.
The firm has not released any more details or elaborated on what the plans will mean for its Chinese manufacturing base. However, it does appear to be slowly fleshing out a relocation move.
Original Submission
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Foxconn to Hire 1 Million People in India by 2020
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 31 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 14 2015, @11:57AM
India... the place where human work is still cheaper than robots [pcworld.com]... for now.
Or, to put it in khallow's terms [soylentnews.org]: "China labor has priced itself out of the market"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:05PM
And in another few decades, India will have priced itself out of the market. Then that era's equivalent of Foxconn will move to someplace else with an even lower prevailing wage and fewer labor protections. I see two potential endpoints in this race to the bottom of the labor pricing barrel: Everywhere around the world implemented basic income, or effectively enslaved workers (possibly aboard seasteads in international waters).
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:11PM
Africa is next big spot for this kind of work. Massive Chinese financial investment, etc. I donno that they can do it. You can't run a semiconductor fab during an ethnic cleansing or famine or disease outbreak, for example. On the bright side, uncountable billions invested might mean they won't be permitted to behave that way anymore.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 14 2015, @01:28PM
Much of Africa is becoming more politically stable than it once was, with legitimate contested elections in many places and fewer disease outbreaks, wars, and famines. I could imagine a lot of companies successfully setting up shop in South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, Ivory Coast, or Burkina Faso.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @01:53PM
Much of Africa is becoming more politically stable than it once was, with legitimate contested elections in many places
Can we get one of those here in the US?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:46PM
Why not the Tibetans and Bhutanese? Long before I ever learned to code I read Battlefield Earth and its depiction of lamaist monks really taking to programming. Now that I do that myself I think that L. Ron Hubbard was onto something with that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @11:55PM
So, how'd you like the movie?
Rating: 3 percent [rottentomatoes.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:12PM
Ummm... few decades? I'm not giving it more than 10 years. Wanna bet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:22PM
> Ummm... few decades? I'm not giving it more than 10 years. Wanna bet?
China has had an official plan to increase minimum wage levels each year for a long time. The last 5 year plan said 13% annually. [china-briefing.com] I don't know if India can be relied on to make wage increases an official priority. Lack of a command-and-control economy and all that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:45PM
Huh! Like it would matter... US had a pretty weak increase of federal minimum wage [wikipedia.org] over time, the purchasing power actually dropped ever since 1984... and yet it didn't take more than 15 years to lose most its "labor market"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @01:14PM
and yet it didn't take more than 15 years to lose most its "labor market"
That is thru the actions of things such as NAFTA. We used to protect our labor forces because we felt it was strategic to do so from a military standpoint. But that giant sucking sound was our economy turning into a paper tiger. The way they sold it was 'it would be too expensive to move the factory'. Well apparently it wasn't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:59AM
And when the entire population has priced itself out of the labour market, who the hell will have enough money to buy their products?
Why would that happen? I think what I find annoying about arguments on jobs is that one side consistently claims things that never pan out.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 14 2015, @01:28PM
robots
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday July 14 2015, @01:56PM
Robots taking over means every labor market has prices that are too high. That only happens if basic income (or very easy-to-get welfare, which amounts to the same thing) happens - otherwise, under-the-table labor takes over, at prices less than the official minimum wage, because everybody has needs.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:49PM
If I build robots and give my neighbor the capability to build robots too and he his and we collectively share CAD drawings to manufacture what we want/need, why exactly do we need companies to micromanage our lives and subvert our societies again, exactly?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:54PM
I guess we'll find out what happens when you deprive a totally disenfranchised population of even the hope of economic advancement. Oh wait, we were talking about China?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:42PM
The Chinese leaders saw what happened to the USSR, and figured out a large part of the reason for it, in time to save themselves from the next revolution.
I'm not so sure that North Korea's will be as observant.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:51PM
You know, I don't think so. In much of the rest of the world, the government has civil society to buffer it from the immediate consequences of its poor decisions. China doesn't have that because its government eliminated civil society as a threat to its power. As such, the power of the CCP is absolute, but absolutely brittle. The CCP faces essentially the same challenge that the Deep State faces in the West: how to funnel ever more wealth and power to the coffers of the few without suffering the ire of the masses. On the other hand, Chinese labor suffers under no illusion of universal suffrage the way Western populations have. Will their backlash be greater than ours, accordingly? Hard to say, but they will no more escape the coming revolution than we will.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:58PM
They only saved themselves from one revolution. There's always another revolution after that! (And they have made that one worse with their current actions. Whether or not they can save themselves from it when it comes remains to be seen.)
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:55PM
Companies will have a capital and resource exclusivity advantage. What are you going to build your robots from? Will minerals, chemicals, or anything of value be involved?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by cheshire on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:50PM
If nothing else the combination of 'dystopia' and 'seasteads' may have some story potential. Blade Runner/Shadowrun on the high seas could explore topics about what happens away from the control and protection of large government, like a future era wild west mining town with a despotic company dictating how people live and die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @09:06PM
Then that era's equivalent of Foxconn will move to someplace else with an even lower prevailing wage and fewer labor protections./quote>
You mean, Wisconsin? Scott Walker job creation! Too bad it's still decades away.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:49PM
India... the place where human work is still cheaper than robots... for now.
Human labor has been replaced by automation for centuries without doing a thing to reduce the number of people employed or their standard of living. This is merely a continuation of that. Notice that Foxconn is going to employ an astounding number of people in India just like it does in Taiwan and China.
Or, to put it in khallow's terms: "China labor has priced itself out of the market"
Why would Foxconn stop employing people in China and Taiwan? This is being spun as a "relocation move" by the author of the story, but why would Foxconn abandon rather than grow its infrastructure in China? It's all being viewed from a provincial developed world point of view. It's not like the situation between China and the US, for example, where we have a huge multiple in labor cost exists between US and Chinese labor and the US continues while decade after decade more disincentives pile on would-be employers.
I find it bizarre how people in this thread are turning this huge expansion of employment by Foxconn into some sort of morality tale about how evil businesses are making everyone unemployed. We are instead seeing the exact opposite - again. A global majority of peoples' lives are getting better as expected. So I have a question, if the developed world's approach to society and labor/work is so much better why is it that they are the only places in the world where the centuries-old progress to better labor conditions have faltered?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:22PM
So I have a question, if the developed world's approach to society and labor/work is so much better why is it that they are the only places in the world where the centuries-old progress to better labor conditions have faltered?
Some might say . . . it is globalized capitalism. Others might say, it is post-colonialism, which is still colonialism just without so much (although still occasional) military invasion. These jobs are being exported, which is to say they would not exist without the "investment" of the so-called "developed world". So it is not that progress in labor has faltered in the developed world, it is that labor has been intentionally betrayed. Old school imperialism was all about the bass, I mean, the resources. The East India Company destroyed the textile industry in India in order to force Indian farmers to export their cotton to Manchester. Now the process is reversed, and we are shipping Manchester to India, but it is still the same exploitation of differences that would not exist under a free global market.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DECbot on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:03AM
I think the point khallow was trying to make is that the market for Foxconn's products is expanding. Instead of increasing production in Far East
Asia, Foxconn is investing in manufacturing capacity in the new Indian market. It would not surprise me if the major products produced in India are cheap Android cell phones to be sold in India.
European and Japanese car manufacturers have done the same here in the US. If a certian model acheives enough popularity in the US, it becomes cheaper to build the car here (sub-assemblies in US/MEX/CAN & final assembly in US) than to import it from across the ocean.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 15 2015, @06:38AM
I think the point khallow was trying to make|
OMG. you think khallow was trying to make a point? When the pointlessness of his point was pointed out in the first post? I am at a loss for words, and may be forced to resort to alliteration. Market mayhem muddles metriculous mendacity. Best I can do on short notice.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:51AM
These jobs are being exported, which is to say they would not exist without the "investment" of the so-called "developed world". So it is not that progress in labor has faltered in the developed world, it is that labor has been intentionally betrayed.
You could see it that way, but it's not going to change a thing. The new markets and the new powers of this century don't have any loyalty to developed world labor.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 15 2015, @06:31AM
Ah, yes! But since you bring loyalty into it, the nations where these workers reside have no loyalty to the capitalist bastards exploiting them, except insofar as they are bought. So, "nationalization"? Worker Ownership? Soft Socialism? Far more dangerous in those places that in the US where a Confederate battle flag and anti-unionism are seen as patriotic, no? C'mon, khallow, you can clearly see the whole system is unsustainable, and will be going down within our lifetimes. Time to get on the side of history!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 15 2015, @09:29PM
But since you bring loyalty into it
Actually, you implied it by the word, "betrayal".
the nations where these workers reside have no loyalty to the capitalist bastards exploiting them, except insofar as they are bought. So, "nationalization"? Worker Ownership? Soft Socialism? Far more dangerous in those places that in the US where a Confederate battle flag and anti-unionism are seen as patriotic, no? C'mon, khallow, you can clearly see the whole system is unsustainable, and will be going down within our lifetimes. Time to get on the side of history!
I think you will end up pleasantly surprised. It's a lot more sustainable now than it was in 1950 and I think that trend will continue. The current developed world might have to be restructured economically due to high levels of publicly held government debt, central bank gaming, and the Eurozone mess, but I don't see those problems as insurmountable.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 15 2015, @01:55AM
iGizmos made in US after?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford