Special Assistant to the CEO of Foxconn Technology Group, Louis Woo told Reuters the makers of advanced liquid crystal displays are “reconsidering” manufacturing those displays at a “$10 billion Wisconsin campus,” focusing instead on hiring more engineers and researches, “rather then the manufacturing workforce the project first promised.”
FoxConn’s investment into Wisconsin was announced in 2017 at a White House Ceremony receiving much praise from the President as proof he was reviving American manufacturing.
The deal included, as CNN reported at the time, a large tax incentive package that included in part, the state paying $400 million on road improvements, along with the Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County agreeing to provide $764 million in tax incentives, which also includes buying the land which the plant will be built and giving it to Foxconn for free.
As the News Blender reported in summer of 2018, the President along with then-Governor Scott Walker (R), then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R) attending the groundbreaking ceremony that the President tweeted at the time would “provide jobs for up to 15,000 Wisconsin Workers.”
According to Woo the company is still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but he explained that based on the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the U.S., that the company has no place here and can not compete.
In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S. We can’t compete.
Louis Woo Reuters interview January 30th, 2019.
He went on to explain that FoxConn is not building a factory in Wisconsin instead the company will focus on creating a “technology hub” which would be a larger research facility with some packing and assembly operations.
In Wisconsin we’re not building a factory. You can’t use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment.
Louis Woo Reuters interview January 30th, 2019.
According to the article FoxConn had reiterated early promises of creating 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, but the article explains by 2020 they expect to employee about 5,000, Reuters adds that a company unnamed source told them that figure was closer to 1,000 people.
Reuters notes that Woo explained that manufacturing LCD panels in greater China and Japan, then shipping them to Mexico for the final assembly would be more profitable than building them in the U.S..
For What It’s Worth.
In March of 2017 The Washington Post explained that FoxConn in 2013 had reached a similar deal with Harrisburg, PA, where the company had “promised” to invest $30 million on building a new factory and creating some 500 jobs, that factory according to the article never happened.
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