Here in Whitewater, the local private business lobby invited last year as a guest speaker a state operative to exaggerate wildly talk about Foxconn. See A Sham News Story on Foxconn.
As it turns out, Foxconn hasn’t even been able to meet the low, first-year employment goals set for the publicly-subsidized project. Rick Rommel reports Foxconn falls short of first job-creation hurdle but reiterates ultimate employment pledge:
Foxconn Technology Group had 178 full-time Wisconsin employees in 2018 — 82 jobs short of the minimum required for the company to immediately claim state job-creation tax credits.
The electronics manufacturer, however, can still earn credits for the 2018 employment by making up for the job-creation shortfall in future years of its long-term contract with the state.
Foxconn ultimately could receive $1.5 billion in job credits as part of an overall public subsidy package totaling about $4 billion.
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At the same time, the company said it had changed the timing of its hiring plans.
“While we remain committed to creating 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, we have adjusted our recruitment and hiring timeline,” Foxconn executive Louis Woo said in the letter sent to Mark Hogan, secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., and shared with Gov. Tony Evers. “As a company with operations around the world, we need to have the agility to adapt to a range of factors including global economic conditions.
(At the Journal Sentinel, Rick Rommell is something of a Foxconn apologist, so by the time he’s writing about bad news…)
Now one should do what one can for others, even for the state- and crony-capitalists who’ve banded together in a local lobbying group. I’d guess that the annual meeting of the Greater Whitewater Committee is now approaching, and perhaps they still need a guest speaker. I’ve previously suggested Scott Walker (and now he’s free, one hears), but I’ll admit there’s one guest speaker even more suited to that organization and its interests.
Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition, Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, and Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land.