Yep. They’ve been using their cash and Cook’s supply chain skills to crush competition and secure sweatshops wherever cheap labor can be found. It’s been going on for years. I think they have seen the tensions building in China and Taiwan and have been making mostly subtle changes for years. Covid was an excuse to ramp that up.

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They could always use Taiwan. All the benefits of a chinese sweatshop except it's not China.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should check salaries in Taiwan.

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

between 23-32k TWD yearly for factory workers (from the couple of sites I saw) which is less than 1k USD

I have no clue what the purchasing power of that is though.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure where you got these numbers from but I think you're off by over a magnitude. Taiwan's GDP per capita is over US$30K nominal, and over US$70K PPP. In GDP per capita PPP they're sitting around 13th in the world as of 2023. The minimum wage is over US$800 per month. Trading Economics shows manufacturing average salary of over US$1600 per month. You might have looked at monthly numbers thinking they're yearly. Although even that's low given that the lower bound is lower than minimum wage.

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

well shit glassdoor does default to monthly instead of yearly. this is their fault and i will get revenge.