Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Apple increasing employment in Ireland, creating 1,000 more jobs

Apple increasing employment in Ireland, creating 1,000 more jobs
Thread Tools
NewsPoster
MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 11:39 AM
 
Apple is increasing its manufacturing presence in Ireland, by announcing it is hiring an extra 1,000 staff in the country. Foreign investment agency IDA Ireland confirmed the new jobs are being created in the country, with the current 5,000 positions in Apple's Cork office increasing by 1,000 by the middle of 2017 to approximately 6,000 employees, after already adding 1,000 employees in the last year alone.

The new jobs announcement comes at a time when a ruling about Apple's tax affairs in the country is due to be issued, which could result in Apple paying millions in back taxes. Speaking to Reuters, finance minister Michael Noonan suggested the employment announcement shows the controversy "hasn't affected (Apple's) enthusiasm for Ireland. I think they are bringing a lot of intellectual property onshore too, but that's less clear."

The increase in employment at the Hollyhill facility, which deals with manufacturing and customer care, is not the only job creation program Apple is operating in the country. It is in the process of creating a 263,000-square-foot data center near Athenry in County Galway, which will cost close to $1 billion in total when it is completed in 2017, and will create around 300 jobs during the construction phase.
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 11:59 AM
 
That's just wonderful. An American company creating more jobs in another country.
     
DiabloConQueso
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 12:25 PM
 
Are you suggesting that if Apple hadn't created 1,000 jobs in Ireland that they would have created 1,000 jobs in the USA instead?

Apple is a global company, not an American company. Just because they're headquartered here doesn't mean all their business and all their employment should be conducted within the confines of our borders.

Apple is creating jobs domestically, too. Are you implying that they can't do both simultaneously?
     
Inkling
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Seattle
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 02:29 PM
 
Note the contradiction going on. Companies such as Apple export their manufacturing to countries where factory workers can't afford the products. They depend on some other company to pay Americans enough to afford their products. That sounds like mooching on our economy. Having manufacturing in Ireland makes sense. That's money spent in Europe to make products sold in Europe. Having almost no manufacturing in the U.S. makes far less sense.
Author of Untangling Tolkien and Chesterton on War and Peace
     
climacs
Senior User
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: in front of my computer
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 06:54 PM
 
better Ireland than China, where the workers absolutely can't afford any Apple products. I have a hunch that the wages in Ireland are nowhere near as low as those in China.
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 07:34 PM
 
DiabloConQuesco - If Apple is not an American company, then let them move to China or Pakistan or wherever. Of course they don't because THEY BENEFIT from the stability and protection of being in the U.S. That protection is paid for by all of our taxes and is provided by our military, our government, etc. So if they want to take advantage of those things, then, yes, they are an American company and they could provide jobs here. And before anyone barks about me picking on Apple, what I am saying is true for many companies, this just happens to be an article about Apple.
     
slboett
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Pasadena, CA USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 11, 2015, 07:48 PM
 
Apple, like most other tech companies now, has sold out America. Not due to this story, but the work visas that are being abused to bring cheap labor here from India and China, to mention but two. If you're in the tech world and aren't a superstar, you're going to be replaced by a couple cheap imported bodies before you know it...
     
DiabloConQueso
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 12:43 AM
 
Ok, got it. Apple -- who sells products worldwide -- creating jobs for both Americans as well as citizens of foreign countries in their home countries is a bad thing.

Damn Irish stealing all our jobs, right? We'll just have to deny the resume of anyone named MacGregor when they apply to the Apple Campus, or any number of Apple plants, business centers, retail shops, or manufacturing plants located within the confines of the US borders.

Thanks for setting me straight. I was under the impression that Apple products are consumed worldwide and that they were a diversified, multi-national company. Apple should exclusively produce and sell Apple stuff within the confines of the US borders and the rest of the industrialized world can build and sell their own stuff.
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 09:38 AM
 
Diablo - How does objecting to Apple's minimal domestic manufacturing equate to discriminating against Irish people in the U.S.? A straw man argument if there ever was one.

You propose as an absurdity that "Apple should exclusively produce and sell Apple stuff within the confines of the US borders and the rest of the industrialized world can build and sell their own stuff." What is happening is pretty much the opposite - Apple almost exclusively produces stuff outside the confines of the U.S. All Apple seems to want from the U.S. is the protection and stability of being located here and, as Inkling has indicated, that its citizens buy its stuff, but doesn't provide the manufacturing jobs here.

And isn't it interesting that there's no problem building stuff in China and shipping it all over the world, but somehow stuff needs to be built in Ireland in order to serve the Irish market.
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 09:43 AM
 
And let's not even get into the issue of Apple setting up a subsidiary in Ireland to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Whoops, I just did.
     
DiabloConQueso
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 10:47 AM
 
Do you think it feasible (from any and all angles, from corporate to consumer) for Apple to exclusively or semi-exclusively manufacture its products in the US?
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 12:03 PM
 
I wasn't advocating for exclusive or semi-exclusive manufacturing, just more than the almost negligible amount that is done now.
     
DiabloConQueso
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 11:01 PM
 
We don't just use China and Taiwan and Ireland because they're cheap and exploitable; we use them also because they sit on tons of natural resources and materials that go into the manufacturing of many of the items we use.

Not every material required to fabricate a computer (silicon, aluminum, gold, nickel, etc.) can be found in abundance -- much less mined effectively -- within the USA. Our reliance on third-world and other first-world countries extends much beyond labor.

Want to significantly increase the amount of manufacturing of Apple products done within the confines of the US borders? That's all well and good, but there's still some 12-year-old foreign child being sent into the depths of a dangerous man-made cave to extract the raw materials to be shipped en masse to the USA to be used in the manufacturing of those products.

If your beef is about the lack of domestic jobs, be prepared for prices of those products to skyrocket.

If your beef is about poor working conditions in Apple factories overseas, be prepared to accept that taking the manufacturing portion away from them is literally taking the *least* dangerous part of the pipeline away from them. You're not saving anyone.

The harsh truth is that US manufacturing is heavily reliant on other countries -- for their labor or their materials, one or the other, or both. You cannot simplify it down to "Apple needs to do more here in the USA." The devil is in the details and the process falls apart within that simplistic view.

The birthplace of a company does not define the company it is today. Apple is not a US company. It is a global, multi-national company. You can advocate all you want for domestic manufacturing and processing, but someone has to consider all the details of doing such a thing, despite your wishes and hopes, and those wishes and hopes -- if they come to fruition -- come with incredible and sometimes negative consequences and trade-offs.
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 12, 2015, 11:18 PM
 
I've stated why in my opinion Apple is an American company. If they aren't, then let them move everything including the headquarters to China or Pakistan and see how long they last there.

We're going around in circles and it sounds like no minds will be changed.
     
DiabloConQueso
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 13, 2015, 12:01 AM
 
You haven't stated your opinion(s) on why Apple is an American company.

You've stated your opinion that if you assume a company is multi-national that they should NOT be headquartered in the USA.

That's a gigantic difference. You've not literally, figuratively, nor metaphorically said, "Apple is an American company because _______" anywhere in any of your comments. The only reasons you give is that Apple takes advantage of various tax laws and corporate protections (whatever that means) in the US. That does not an American company make. There are plenty of multi-national companies that take advantage of the protections and tax laws in the US -- that doesn't for a moment make them "an American company."

All you've said is that if Apple is not an American company then they need to get out of America.
     
mac_in_tosh
Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Nov 13, 2015, 06:19 PM
 
They were incorporated under U.S. law.

I didn't say they should not be headquartered in the U.S., I said that since they are headquartered here that implies that they believe there is some benefit to being headquartered here as otherwise they would just leave. That benefit is, among other things, a stable environment that is provided by all of our tax dollars.

But I think this has gone off on a tangent. The question of whether they are a U.S. company or not is really not that relevant. Toyota, for instance, is a Japanese company but they have several factories in the U.S.
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:47 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,