Yet how many more technical jobs in those 20 years, compared to other US tech companies?...
I'm willing to bet, without looking it up, that Apple currently employs more people at their HQs and company owned data centres (so... no retail jobs) than the company employed in total in 1996 when Jobs returned. I am willing to be corrected if you can find, with links, data that refutes my statement.
....
What probably helped most, is that Apple doesn't pay sales commissions.
In your eyes, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
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What annoys me most about these kinds of threads is the 'American navel gazing'. America didn't see the global trends that free trade made possible, and was surprised by the geographic shift in jobs. Other countries as well, to be fair.
However, some nations - many of whom had free-trade imposed on them by the US - saw the writing on the wall, and instead of fighting free-trade grabbed it by the horns, wrestled it to the ground, and made free-trade work for them. They started to out compete the big manufacturing nations, including the US. Germany saw what was coming, and went into automation big time. Canada kinda saw it, so some of our factories are booming. But we have the raw resources to sell to whomever has the factories. Plus we kept our banks intact by making follow some basic rules.
If the US wants those jobs back, then it needs to compete for them... just like Foxconn competed for the jobs in the 1st place.
And - No! I do not want to pay more for an Apple product just so that non-competitive Americans can have a job.