“A study by researchers at UC Irvine found that the iPod was responsible for creating nearly 14,000 jobs in the United States and another 27,000 abroad,” Bill Snyder reports for InfoWorld. “And those numbers are a few years old. Given the age of the product today, the iPod may not be generating many new jobs, but think of the positions that have been created subsequently by the far more complex iPhone and iPad.”
“Sure, the iPod, iPad, and iPhone are assembled in Asia. But the real value in those products was added in Cupertino, Calif. — part of Silicon Valley — where they were invented, and in the offices and cubicles of developers around the country who crank out the apps that make the iPad and the iPhone so useful,” Snyder reports. “The offshore jobs are mostly in low-wage manufacturing, while the jobs in the states are more evenly divided between high-wage engineers and managers and lower-wage retail and nonprofessional workers. As a result of this and of cross-country wage differences, U.S. workers earned a total of $753 million, while workers outside the country earned $318 million, the researchers found.
Snyder reports, “The conclusion of that report argues directly against one of the most pervasive myths of today’s economy: U.S. workers and the middle class are not reaping the gains of the high-tech economy.”
Read more in the full article here.