Apple has come under increasing scrutiny for its offshoring of product manufacturing in recent years, with a number of observers believing that Apple should be trying to bring more jobs to the United States. But as noted by AllThingsD, Apple has now taken a more public position on its domestic impact by posting a new page on its site highlighting over 500,000 U.S. jobs it claims to be directly or indirectly responsible for.
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Apple breaks the 514,000 jobs down into two categories: 304,000 jobs directly tied to Apple and its business partners and another 210,000 jobs that are part of the "iOS app economy". The first category includes 47,000 Apple employees and another estimated 257,000 employees at companies such as Samsung, Corning, FedEx, and UPS who are part of Apple's supply chain and other businesses. Rather than a direct count of employees at other companies, that latter figure is calculated based on "employment multipliers" published the U.S. government and applied to Apple's domestic expenditures.
Apple further addresses its in-house efforts, noting that 47,000 of its 70,000 employees are located in the United States, with 7,800 U.S. jobs having been added in 2011. Over 27,000 of its U.S. employees are part of the company's network of 246 retail stores, with Apple reporting that the majority of these employees are full-time workers. On the support side, Apple employees 7,700 AppleCare Advisors in the United States, acknowledging that it could save 50% on call center costs by outsourcing to other countries such as India but that it opts to keep the jobs in the United States in order to maintain its highly-regarded customer service standards.
On the App Economy side, Apple notes that it has paid out over $4 billion to developers since the App Store was launched less than four years ago, creating an entirely new industry that has seen 210,000 new jobs added to the U.S. economy. With 248,000 registered iOS developers in the U.S. and over 5,000 iOS developer jobs listed on Indeed.com, Apple clearly believes that the industry will continue to see strong growth.
Top Rated Comments
Because I consider myself unemployed right now and am looking for a job. iOS is a fun hobby that happens to bring in about $10/day; it's no where near enough to sustain me.
$100B in the bank means $100B more that banks can loan out to people starting businesses, buying houses and cars, and other things, which all means more job growth and more tax income for the government. Do you think banks give out interest because of magic? Banks are profit-making enterprises, using your money to make more money, then they give you back a cut.
Don't argue about economics if you are so ignorant of the basic elements of an economic system.
It is strange, but not incredibly surprising given the rhetoric of some individuals in these forums and in the press. If you listened solely to them, you would think that Apple only employed slaves and benefitted this country in no way. This information helps to put much of the recent discussion involving Apple into perspective.
I down vote you for caring about down votes. ;)