Foxconn claims it has secured enough workers for seasonal demand
Foxconn has assured investors that it has managed to recruit enough workers at all major Chinese factories before production of the "iPhone 12" is set to begin.
Chinese Foxconn factories will return to full operational capacity following a difficult few months brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic.
The company issued a statement on Sunday night, stating that they'd reached their recruitment goals ahead of schedule, according to Nikkei Asian Review. Earlier in March, Chairman Young Liu had told investors that the factories were operating at 50% capacity.
Foxconn factories are anticipated to hit peak production in July, when they'll begin manufacturing the upcoming "iPhone 12" line for fall release. Factories underperformed in January through March, which lead to costly delays and staff shortages.
The coronavirus outbreak has made an impact on Foxconn's finances, with the iPhone assembly partner enduring its most significant year-on-year drop in revenue for a month in seven years due to the virus affecting its production pipeline. Shares in the company have steadily declined, dropping 4.7% on Monday as investors fear COVID-19 will dampen demand for consumer electronics in U.S. and U.K. markets.
The company has stressed that it is working hard to prevent new infections of COVID-19. Approximately 55,000 workers have been tested for coronavirus, with over 40,000 receiving additional chest X-rays.
Chinese Foxconn factories will return to full operational capacity following a difficult few months brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic.
The company issued a statement on Sunday night, stating that they'd reached their recruitment goals ahead of schedule, according to Nikkei Asian Review. Earlier in March, Chairman Young Liu had told investors that the factories were operating at 50% capacity.
Foxconn factories are anticipated to hit peak production in July, when they'll begin manufacturing the upcoming "iPhone 12" line for fall release. Factories underperformed in January through March, which lead to costly delays and staff shortages.
The coronavirus outbreak has made an impact on Foxconn's finances, with the iPhone assembly partner enduring its most significant year-on-year drop in revenue for a month in seven years due to the virus affecting its production pipeline. Shares in the company have steadily declined, dropping 4.7% on Monday as investors fear COVID-19 will dampen demand for consumer electronics in U.S. and U.K. markets.
The company has stressed that it is working hard to prevent new infections of COVID-19. Approximately 55,000 workers have been tested for coronavirus, with over 40,000 receiving additional chest X-rays.
Comments
...don't get cocky.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/asia/hong-kong-coronavirus-quarantine-intl-hnk/index.html ;
The shut-down is to produce a slow pandemic instead of a fast one, and buys time for survivor immunity study, vaccine work, prophylactic drug work, and increased testing strategies to contain future hot spots from repeated waves of infection. This shores up the herd immunity to acceptable levels.
Doing nothing ends in millions of deaths, which would also be disruptive to the economy in a myriad of ways.
For more detail on this, here’s a good video on the pandemic clock cycles for CV-19, and mortality age brackets.
https://youtu.be/gku7mdTS8cc
I am not expecting much assistance to be available to small businesses who were somewhat successful, turning a small profit, and paying their employees and their bills on time until business completely collapsed either by sudden unexpected lack of demand or by government order. Airlines who should have a financial cushion and wealthy investors as backup? Yeah, they'll get covered by federal grants. Financial and investment companies? They'll get government assistance too. In fact the majority of the federal assistance to come will be going to those who should have had the wherewithal to survive a few months with major investors ready to step up to make sure they remain viable. Big business who already had a lot of wealth have their congressional benefactors.
Small business like local restaurants, neighborhood bars, home service providers, tradesmen, food wholesalers, local musicians and such will simply be out-of-luck. The money they worked months/years to save to start their own businesses or purchase their own equipment lost through no fault of their own and no one in government will be there to bail them out. They aren't big enough to be important, collateral damage. The big guys get financial protection with perhaps no expectation of repayment, not so for the startups and family businesses. Nothing they owe will be forgiven. Sad stuff.
In Italy they've lost over 6k people, so that's at most a loss of $60 billion. Still probably small compared to the economic loss.
But these death totals might still be the tip of the iceberg. Suppose we lose 2 million people in the US, then that's a dollar loss of about $20 trillion. That might be worth preventing. Given how fast it's spreading and that it appears to be hitting young people harder than initially reported, I'm inclined to think the economic cost of containing this thing are worth it.
Also -- it doesn't HAVE to be the case that all those businesses fail and jobs never return. That's preventable. It's just a question of whether there is the political will to prevent it. The will appears to exist in France and at the US Federal Reserve, but it's not clear the will exists in Congress or the White House.
I can think of a few possible government actions:
0. Do nothing and hope for the best (the libertarian position and the >= 2010 American approach)
1. national governments decide to suspend (or limit) any patent-costs associated with production of ventilators and then put out an RFP to purchase a large volume on behalf of the nation. The bid that wins is the one that provides the best value (not necessarily the lowest price, mind you) for the government (I lean towards this option -- it's a nice balance between free market and government and it's the 20th century American approach).
2. command specific companies with relevant capabilities to produce the ventilators; pay them some "reasonable" compensation (It could work, it's the British/socialist approach, but I don't love it)
3. fully nationalize the production of ventilators, shoot people who resist (the Soviet approach)
Im perfectly happy too look at it that way if you are.
...continues at link...
The U.S. will need another week or two to see how well social distancing works, but experts have plenty of evidence that it does, even in Italy's case.
You are being naïve if you think that the same factories that pump out Apple things can immediately start pumping out ventilators.
Everything that played out in China, South Korea, Singapore, Italy, and Spain, was happening weeks before the U.S., and people still sat on their hands. What more data did you need at that time? How "rational" are you people for ignoring what was right in front of you, by extrapolation?
But of course, now you want more data to make the decision.
Weak sauce.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1242282560106958854.html
"There’s a strong and understandable desire to return to better times and a functioning economy. But it should not be lost on anyone that there's no such thing as a functioning economy and society so long as covid-19 continues to spread uncontrolled in our biggest cities.
We must stay on the battlefield."
But I disagree that it's wrong to base decisions on data. When I talk about the need for data and models to inform decisions, I'm really talking about what policy makers can and should do (could and should have done).
I'm not on the Senate intelligence committee. I don't work at the CIA, CDC, or White House. The only information I have available to me is what the US Infotainment industry serves up. The Infotainment industry was saying that this virus produces "flu-like" symptoms; that 80% of cases are "mild"; etc. I also know that the Chinese government is a highly dubious source of information, and that it's hard to infer truth from their actions.
Once the virus got out of China and started hitting open societies, though, it became much more apparent -- even through the Infotainment providers -- that this isn't the flu and that what some people call "mild" is not what I would call mild. While some people get this and are asymptomatic, others are hit very, very hard. A co-worker's 38 year old sister with no prior conditions caught this thing and felt like she was going to die. She says it's the sickest she's ever been and the recovery has been very slow. That's not what I'd call "flu-like" or "mild". That's the kind of information that I was not getting back in January.
Based on the info available to me now, I strongly lean in the direction of taking the economic hit in order to contain this thing. But I recognize that I'm still not on the Senate Intelligence committee, etc -- I'm not the policy maker, this isn't my call to make. But I think the people who do need to make this call should make it based on a careful analysis of data, not shoot-from-the-hip-ism. Unfortunately, I think shoot-from-the-hip is all that the Reality TV star knows.
You should also be aware that younger people that catch this, may end up having life long complications, so consider all of the medical data, not just the deaths.