Apple supplier Foxconn may be rethinking its U.S. manufacturing plans in Wisconsin, but the Taiwan-based company wants people to know it’s serious about delivering the jobs it promised.
Responding to a recent report, Foxconn says it will keep its promise to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin.
Yesterday’s report noted that Foxconn won’t be producing TV screens in Wisconsin as planned. “In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,” Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn chairman Terry Guo, said this week. “We can’t compete.”
Instead, Foxconn says it will employ engineers and researchers at the plant with the goal of making products for the industrial and health care fields. According to today’s report it will also focus on Internet of Things devices, along with the education, entertainment, sport, security, and smart city markets. (It’s very unlikely that iPhones will be manufactured in the United States anytime soon by Foxconn. The company seems to be exploring India as an alternative to manufacturing them in China.)
There’s no doubt that the political system has changed considerably since 2017, when Foxconn made its deal to open a U.S. factory. The company’s recent earnings have been disappointing, and a burgeoning U.S.-China trade war has taken its toll on the Chinese economy.
Nonetheless, many people are rightly upset at reports that Foxconn is scaling back plans — after receiving what is reportedly the best subsidy package in Wisconsin’s history. Foxconn has already lost out on some of those tax credits after missing hiring goals for 2018.
Source: Digitimes
