Apple Comes Out With A Job Creation Data Report. Apple Inc. becomes one of the few companies that are trying hard to convince the users and the Government alike, about the positive contribution that the company has made to boosting employment within the United States.
Not long ago, Apple was criticized for the sorry plight of workers in assembly shops in China. It may be noted here that Apple sources its devices from China, and the labour conditions within China are pretty bad when you compare against the work standards in the United States and Europe.
Now, Apple is known the world over for manufacturing iPads and iPhones. However, there have been doubts that have been cast on Apple’s major contribution to job creation within the United States, given the fact that most of the assembling and manufacturing activity takes place in China. On its own, Apple employs 47,000 workers.
To counter these questions and doubts, Apple Inc. released, for the first time, a job creation data report in which it has mentioned that Apple has generated or supported 514,000 jobs in the United States
In a bid to re-emphasize the data credentials, Apple has mentioned that the marketing, distribution and logistics support for its products has enabled a lot of US workers to benefit in an implicit way.
So, there are truck drivers who have benefitted by rendering the distribution or transportation services to the Apple products. Then there are marketing professionals who have benefited by participating in the various marketing initiatives that have been taken by Apple at some point or other to boost its marketing bottom-line. There could be other such diverse roles that may have been created or supported indirectly through the rising sales of Apple products.
You may be asking as to how all this pans out against the employment created outside the United States? As per some of the conservative estimates, Apple has created close to 700,000 jobs outside the States through a vast network of its suppliers. You could safely conclude or infer that most of these jobs would have been created in China.
Now, analysts are divided as to what was the immediate need for Apple to come up with a report that tries to pitch it as a ‘job multiplier’? Is there any pressure on the company?
Or, is it doing this as a public relations exercise to counter some of the negative press that has been cast on brands like Apple and Microsoft for not doing enough for the US economy. Expectedly, Apple has not disclosed any reasons behind such an exercise.
And, without any clarity on the issue, it is difficult to write about the root cause of such an attempt to glorify the ‘indirect jobs’ created by Apple. One thing that is certain is that this will set a precedent for many other companies to come out with similar reports to confuse the markets, Governments and the end-users in terms of the direct and indirect employment created by the companies.
