In his first-ever interview as Apple (AAPL) CEO, Tim Cook told NBC’s Bryan Williams Dec. 6 the company plans to bring manufacturing of one of its existing Mac lines back to the United States next year. Apple has manufactured its products in China since 1994.
“We’ve been working for years on doing more and more in the United States,” Cook told Williams.
Although he would not reveal where the Macs will be manufactured or how many jobs the move will create, Cook believes it’s crucial to add jobs to the struggling United States economy. Apple products have already helped generate jobs from research and development, to retail to application development—although not all Apple hires. Some of its device components are also made in the USA, such as the glass for the iPhone5, which is manufactured in Kentucky. Apple also has data centers in North Carolina, Oregon and Nevada, with plans to add a new one in Texas.
“We you back up and look at Apple’s effect on job creation in the United States, we estimate that we’ve created more than 600,000 jobs now,” Cook said.
If Apple is so willing to help the US job market, why not bring all its manufacturing back to its home nation?
“It’s not so much about price, it’s about skills,” Cook explained, adding the US education system does not produce enough workers with the necessary skills for modern manufacturing processes.
“The consumer electronics world was really never here,” he said. “It’s a matter of starting it here.”
Cook has not disclosed which line of Macs will be made in the US, but the company plans to invest $100 million to move the production stateside in 2013.
In a softer side of the interview, Cook told Williams he still misses Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, his friend and mentor who stepped down in August 2011 before succumbing to a long battle with pancreatic cancer in October 2011. Cook explained it was Jobs’ advice before his passing that has allowed him to lead Apple to its current success—the company is valued about 43 percent higher than it was when Cook stepped in. Jobs apparently told Cook to follow his instincts.
“I loved Steve dearly, and miss him dearly,” Cook told Williams. “And one of the things he did for me, that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed, is he told me, on a couple of occasions before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never ask the question, ‘What Steve would do,’ to just do what’s right.”
The announcement to move even some manufacturing jobs back to America proves that Williams is, indeed, walking to his own drummer, in contrast with Jobs who once told President Obama, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”
Still, Williams can’t help but reflect on the sorrow that accompanied Jobs’ passing.
“I always thought (Steve) would bounce back, because he always did,” Cook said. “And it wasn’t until extremely close to the end that I reached a sort of intellectual point that… he couldn’t bounce this time.”
What else is on the horizon for Apple? In typical Apple fashion, Cook remained cryptic. He did leave Williams with a mysterious statement, however.
“When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like a have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years,” he said. “It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.”
Apple stock has fallen more than 20 percent since its Sept. 21 release of the iPhone 5, cutting the company’s market value by more than $150 billion after it reached an all-time high of $705.07 a share. On Dec. 7 mid-afternoon trading, shares were at about $533.
The market has been volatile for the world’s most volatile company, however. Stock fell by more than 6 percent on Dec. 5 alone, Apple’s largest one-day drop in more than four years-less than three weeks after it saw its largest one-day gain in three years with a 7.2-percent surge.
Some experts hypothesize the sell-off is not, in fact, due to stiffer competition, but growing fears of higher capital gains taxes that may take effect Jan. 1 as a result of the “fiscal cliff” negotiations in Washington.
