Sunday, February 3, 2019

Foxconn says WI op will hire 10,000 engineers, a big, new number.

Foxconn is engineering a different projected workforce at its Racine County facility. Time will tell if the projects are credible or if 'Foxconn Light' is on tap.

It wasn't that long ago that Foxconn was saying its focus was on blue-collar employment:
Foxconn will need thousands of workers with entry-level skills and a high school diploma
A WEDC staff report prepared [in October, 2017] roughly supports...[that] about 27 percent of the 13,000 employees are expected to be engineers and 28 percent technicians, with just under 7 percent in business-support roles such as finance, human resources and information technology. 
The remaining 4,995 employees — 38 percent — would be hourly “operators,” the report said.
Now Foxconn's chairmen Terry Gou is saying after discussing the project with Donald Trump that it's projected Wisconsin workforce of 13,000 employees will hire far more engineers than blue collar workers:
"Foxconn plans to hire more than 10,000 engineers to do research and development," he said. 
I can't help but conclude that Trump's insertion into the issue at this point is more about his presenting himself as a job creator in Wisconsin prior to a re-election he won't win without carrying Wisconsin again - - and polling suggests that isn't in the cards for him here - - just as Walker having pegged his failed 2018 re-election to the Foxconn project was a loosing strategy.

I note that a 2017 Wisconsin employment analysis lists about 23,000 computer, industrial, electrical, mechanical and other engineers employed in the state along with others in categories which I am assuming are not as relevant to what Foxconn will hire

Even if I am underestimating the categories, Foxconn is looking hire engineers equal to a large fraction of the current engineering sector in Wisconsin, raising questions like: where are these people going to come from; do state facilities have the capacity to help recruit and train them; and is an unintended consequence of Foxconn's potential presence here a brain drain from other businesses, and faculty staffs?


I've added this development to my Foxconn archive.

At Foxconn's Mount Pleasant building site: Out with the cabbage, in with the engineers?

2 comments:

  1. FauxCon is investing billions in engineering?

    BULLSHIT!

    ReplyDelete
  2. $10,000 per year for 10,000 engineers = $100,000,000 a year.

    A slightly more realistic underestimate would be $50,000 per year fully loaded costs for a two year graduate. That's $500,000,000 per year if you have 10,000 on the payroll at that average rate. Employ them for two years and you are burning a BILLION in cash to do one hell of a lot of FauxCON ingineering!

    That's before there are any other costs or investments (plant, equipment etc) associated with the employment of 10,000 engineers to do whatever the hell they will be doing.

    This smells like another FauxCON Trumpian brainfart.

    ReplyDelete