bigWOWO

The NY Times had a great article on Apple and why Apple employs so few people in the U.S.: Apple, America, and the Squeezed Middle Class. We’ve talked about Tyler Cowan’s Great Stagnation and how Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t need lots of bodies to make their products, but Apple, a company that manufactures electronic components, does need lots of people. They just don’t hire them here. Apple made $400,000 per employee last year, in large part because they outsource their work overseas. Apple says that the labor costs aren’t the major reason for outsourcing, that there are other logistical reasons for centralizing their work in Asia. But when Foxconn, the company that assembles iPhones, pays many of its workers $17 a day, it’s a bit hard to believe that labor costs don’t play a role.