From PC World: Manufacturing jobs (any jobs, really) are a hot-button topic these days, and our President has made no secret of his desire for big companies, and Apple in particular, to make more products here. In a Wednesday interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC’s Mad Money, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple is creating a fund to promote advanced manufacturing in the United States, and seeding it with $1 billion to start.
CBNC.com has the video and a complete transcript of the wide-ranging conversation, and it’s worth a watch. These are the points that most piqued our interest—OK, and one that just made us laugh.
Cramer asked Cook straight up, “You’re a huge company. What are you doing to create jobs?”
Cook responded that Apple had created 2 million jobs in the U.S., a stat he’d also mentioned in Tuesday’s Q2 earnings call. But this time he broke it down, and naturally those workers aren’t all wearing Apple logos on their shirts. Still, a lot of them are: Cook spoke of 25,000 employees doing R&D; 6,000 at Apple’s facility in Austin, Texas; plus all the employees at Apple’s retail stores. That’s nowhere near 2 million, but Cook also counts U.S. suppliers who make components here, like Corning glass and 3M adhesives used in iPhones and iPads.
Cook also gave Apple credit for its huge developer community. “And this developer community is almost 1.5 million people now,” he said. “These are folks from really small businesses, a party of one, to larger companies. And they’re writing apps that change the world. And we’re giving them the platform. And we’ve created an incredible store that allows them to sell their product in 155 countries in the world. It’s a really unbelievable empowering experience as a new business.”
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