Apple steps up its effort to emphasize its economic impact
Apple is getting more aggressive about emphasizing its role in the U.S. economy, apparently hoping to counter recurring criticism over its reliance on overseas factories.
On Wednesday, Apple for the first time released a state-by-state breakdown of where its 80,000 U.S. employees work, showing that more than half of them are located outside Silicon Valley. It also announced a $1 billion fund aimed at creating more U.S. manufacturing jobs, although it provided few details.
Cook also promised that Apple will hire “thousands of employees, thousands more in the future” in the U.S., although he didn’t specify how quickly that will happen. Apple’s U.S. payroll has grown roughly 40-fold since 1998, when it had 5,000 U.S. workers.
Besides showing how many of its full-time and part-time employees work in each state, Apple also lists where its 9,000 U.S. suppliers are located. The company says it spent more than $50 billion at its U.S. suppliers last year, helping them employ a total of 450,000 workers.
The company also cited a study by the Progressive Policy Institute that attributes 1.5 million U.S. jobs to Apple’s iPhone “ecosystem”.
Article source: http://www.dailystar.com.lb//Business/International/2017/May-04/404447-apple-steps-up-its-effort-to-emphasize-its-economic-impact.ashx