Apple is boasting that it’s responsible for the creation of two million jobs in the United States and is planning on growing that number further with the launch of a $1 billion fund to promote advanced manufacturing in the country.
The company has updated its US job creation webpage yesterday, a move that coincided with a TV interview during which Tim Cook announced plans to promote manufacturing jobs in the country. The US is one of the leading producers of advanced technologies in the world, so it’s little surprise that Apple is looking to further invest in this sector, especially as the company stands to directly gain from it.
The fund also fits in well with previous Apple efforts to manufacture hardware inside the of US, some of which started as far back as 2013, but most of which are not consumer-facing.
Meanwhile, Cook boasted about this move saying the investment fund will have ripple effects as advanced manufacturing jobs will further spur the growth of the services industry. Apple’s CEO also claimed Apple was responsible for the creation of two million jobs in the US alone, a figure later reflected by the company’s website.
However, Apple only directly employs about 80,000 people according to its own numbers. The vast majority of “jobs” that Apple believes it’s responsible for are in the form developers working in the App Store ecosystem. The iPhone-maker claims that by that measure alone it’s responsible for an additional 1,530,000 jobs.
Cook also lauded his company’s efforts in terms of green technology and sustainable growth. Recently Apple put out a positive report in this area, highlighting the company’s plans to one day be fully reliant on recycled minerals, instead of having to purchase newly mined ones.