Would US workers really want the jobs that have gone to China?
People making iPhones in Foxconn’s ‘stressful’ Shenzhen factories earn less than a quarter of the pay for similar work in America
American firms that moved jobs to China were harshly criticised in a US documentary made five years ago that alleged iPhone maker Apple had just 26,000 employees in the US but had created 700,000 jobs in China.
Death by China, produced and directed by economist Peter Navarro, and based on his book of the same name, matters now because US president-elect Donald Trump has named Navarro as his chief trade policy adviser.
It’s intense and there are only two breaks of 10 minutes each in every shift, excluding lunch
As director of the Trump White House’s newly created National Trade Council, Navarro will be tasked with bringing jobs back to America. But do Americans want the kinds of jobs offered by Foxconn, Apple’s main supplier in China?
Foxconn, a Taiwanese firm, employs more than a million workers in mainland China to assemble iPhones and other gadgets and has been accused by the Hong Kong-based group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour of running sweatshops and treating workers like machines.
It has held talks with US state governments over the years about opening factories in America, but it also plans to fully automate all its factories eventually, so arguments about jobs might prove moot.
