Apple Goes On PR Offensive

When you are a company with a market capitalization of over half a TRILLION dollars, criticism over your business practices will be virtually impossible to dodge.

Apple has done a stellar job of maintaining a near-pristine image while adding hundreds of billions of dollars to its value over the past number of years, however, the world’s most valuable company has come under increasing scrutiny thanks to its eye-poppingly high profits in the face of a stagnant global economy.

The primary criticism laid against Apple? The outsourcing of the manufacturing of key products such as the iPad and iPhone to a company called Foxconn (based in Taiwan, largest private employer in China).

Now, we could write an entire article on the working conditions in Foxconn’s Chinese factories, but we are going to stick with Apple and their outsourcing practices. Resentment towards the company has grown as their profits have grown and the US unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. Many Americans are asking the question - why doesn’t Apple keep as many jobs as possible within the country and stop outsourcing the manufacturing of key product to Foxconn? Why not keep those jobs in the United States?

Apple recently responded to this criticism by putting up this page. Apple claims that they have “created or supported more than 500,000 jobs for U.S. workers”. This includes engineering and delivery jobs (Fed-Ex, UPS, etc) and an estimated 210,000 “iOS app economy” jobs.

According to Apple, 304,000 current US jobs are supported by Apple. This includes those people who are directly employed by Apple (47,000), and an additional 257,000 people in industries such as consumer sales, transportation, business sales and healthcare.

Apple employs over 27,000 people at its 246 retail stores in the United States, with 3,500 of their workers having been working at an Apple store for five years or more. In addition, the company claims that 20,000 construction-related jobs have been created to build Apple stores since 2001.

--

As Apple continues to swell in value, criticism regarding the company’s business practices will continue to grow.

In an election year, with the economy and jobs at the forefront of many voter’s thoughts, Apple is going on the offensive with a PR campaign that is touting the company’s impact on the US economy.

Filed under: General Market News