The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple appears to be ramping up its hiring in China, with over 250 currently open positions posted on the company's website. Alongside the usual positions of retail specialists and store leaders (there are currently 8 Apple Stores in China in the major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Shenzhen), Apple is hiring for a number of technical and administrative positions including an "environmental affairs program manager" and a "security specialist".
Earlier this month, it was reported that two Apple suppliers and manufacturers, UniMicron and Foxconn, were accused of dumping large quantities of heavy toxic metals into nearby rivers. There have also been frequent accusations of labor law violations, with Pegatron (the company widely rumored to be the manufacturer of the upcoming iPhone 5C) being the most recent in the limelight. It therefore comes at no surprise that at least some of the positions Apple is hiring for are intended to help address these issues and comply with local regulations.
The environmental affairs program manager will be based in China’s capital Beijing, the center of political power. According to the job description, the candidate has to “ensure that Apple’s products and processes meet and surpass regional and national environmental regulatory requirements.”
The hiring push in China also comes just as Apple has begun hiring in Taiwan for what has been reported to be a new research and development center focused on iPhone projects.
The Chinese market has been an especially difficult one for Apple, even as it has seen tremendous growth there over the past several years. The company has been in talks with China Mobile, the country's largest carrier, for several years and yesterday it was reported that the two sides have nearly reached an agreement for China Mobile to offer the iPhone. In a conference call last month, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said, "I continue to believe that in the arc of time here, China is a huge opportunity for Apple".
Although nearly all of Apple's products are manufactured in China and the country is now responsible for around 15% of Apple's total revenue, the company still holds a relatively low share of the smartphone market, and recent slowing of momentum saw Apple post a 14% decline in revenue year-on-year to $4.6 billion. In the second quarter of 2013, Apple ranked seventh in the Chinese smartphone market, falling to just 5% from 9% a year earlier.
Top Rated Comments
And even so, if the government had all that tax income, they'd just spend it on more stupid wars... and whatever else.
1) China has fairly tight capital controls that make it difficult to take money that you've earned inside China and move it outside of China. This forces businesses to shift spending in China in order to use the money they've earned there but cannot take out.
2) If you follow how China's state-controlled business deals work, you will know these two stories are related:
* Apple creates R&D Engineering center in China with hundred of open positions.
* China Telecom (a state-run business) finally agrees to sell iPhones after years of holding out.
It's called Quid Pro Quo.
Spot on. Most do not realize that the Justice Roberts Supreme Court ruling recognizing corporations as "persons" created a serious loophole for corporate tax dodging and campaign contributions. There is so much corruption on both sides it's astonishing. I'm very troubled by the recent move in defending the "1%" through examples of a "free market" (an illusion) and capitalism. None of them will earn a fraction of what these people earn. My father was an investment banker with Bear Stearns until retiring in the late 90's. Most are "born into" money and status, very common among my family's "social circle" in the financial sector. It is an "old boys" club, wealth is passed down through generations and success "earned" (i.e. stolen) from many living paycheck to paycheck. Trickle down economics doesn't work. The wealthy are wealthy for one reason: they're cheap. They do not invest their earnings into their company unless it directly benefits them. Defending them is tantamount to a jewish man defending the Third Reich.
I was bewildered by the uproar and mockery of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. Defending the bankers and investors who played god with their money by betting against defaults and voodoo mathematical "derivatives" claiming to support a "free market" was rather ironic. Instilling "groupthink" into the masses that capitalism is a working economic system merely benefits the very people that created this mess and walked away wealthier. The CFO's and top level executives let lower level executives fall on their swords, while Bernanke and others sold stock before the '08 collapse the likes of which came close to an international "Great Depression".
The collapse of Iceland's economy involving the Icelandic Bank Kaupthing is a perfect example of an unchecked capitalist system. A rather complicated bank that was destroyed at the hands of the banks former chairman and Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz. Numerous internal documents from Kaupthing Bank from just prior to the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 20082009 Icelandic financial crisis, show that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off. The government took control and did not bail the banks out, and now Iceland is returning to a prosperous stance pre-2000. Many key players made off with private jets, multi-million dollar homes. March 2013 saw the opening of new prosecutions in Reykjavík against the bank's former chairman and other leading employees for 'orchestrating five large-scale market manipulation conspiracies', in what was the largest prosecutation related to the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis so far.
This is an example of what occurred globally. I had an econ professor once state, "The difference between capitalism and communism is that communism doesn't hide under a veil of a 'free market'". Rather profound.
We have become so polarized by our media and politicians that the cold war has been replaced by Islamic terrorists (Halliburton has to make their money somehow) and red flag terms relating Socialism to Marxism/Communism. We're well behind other first world nations in education, standard of living, longevity yet we continue to cut funding while funneling more federal tax dollars to a military that outspends North Korea 75 to 1.
We have become pawns in a sociopolitical game of chess, too distracted fighting each other to collectively work together, holding elected officials accountable for back room deals and policies. Most don't even know the true definition and concept of a Socialized Democracy. Hint: it's been alive and well in the U.S. for a long time. Without it, public schools, firemen, police, infrastructures wouldn't exist. We're so emotionally volatile most become enraged, comparing socialism to communism, while the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Australia and many others laugh at us. Open your eyes and minds, stop fighting each other and work collectively. History has shown change occurs by unifying a populace, we will never change for the better if we're easily divided with rhetoric most do not understand.
It's a shame you ignore:
1) All the American workers and students that see this sort of stuff going on - it deters them, others, and then CEOs and politicians have the nerve to scapegoat rather than finding a mirror. Especially as some of Apple's higher-ups, including an erstwhile CEO, were college dropouts yet demand people with college degrees... or find ways to blanketly blame the educational system, despite enough circumstantial evidence to prove they are being greedy cheapskates
2) Why do "American" companies offshore jobs to communist countries to help build their economies up with? What next, someone will blame Obama (despite "American" companies propping up communist nations for years or decade, long before Obama, and if Obama bothered to put his foot down he'd be blamed by the same whiners either way...)
3) Apple's lobbying to get Congress to give it a free ride as opposed to it paying its own way. Why doesn't Apple move to China all the way?
4) CORPORATE WELFARE - nuff said
5) As we lose jobs here, there is less money for government to get via taxation so how does the corporate welfare in #4 continue to get doled out?
There. I think that starts to balance things out a tad. At least you assumed that the US would just be spending such tax revenue on wars (often to protect the companies that move to Communist countries, since why else would we otherwise need to have a presence in so many countries?)
Don't think different.
Just think.
Of possibilities.
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Good luck on the edification process...
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Apple is company - a singular term for an entity comprised of people. US English usually puts groupings as being singular terms. UK English usually uses plural terms - it's one of the few times I disagree with any UK English protocol as well...
When readers like you and me and others refer to companies or people therein as "they", it's sloppiness on our part. A company is a thing, not a person, even if it is comprised by people.
Yes. More or less.
But calling is "stupid" is unfair, I think - untrained and undereducated in technology and programming is more like it.