(WGTD)---A top Foxconn executive elaborated and expounded on the company’s change in focus for its Mt. Pleasant complex during a round of interviews this week at several print media outlets.
Louis Woo---special assistant to Foxconn founder, Chairman and CEO Terry Gou--- visited the Racine Journal Times to talk about the company’s commitment to the promise of 13,000 jobs as well as the type of products that will be manufactured at the $10 billion dollar plant being built in Mount Pleasant. However---he also told the newspaper that Foxconn is shifting its initial manufacturing plans heavily towards robotics---so---the makeup of the workforce is changing. Only about 10% of the jobs will be assembly workers instead of the 75% first promised. Woo said the other 90% of the employees would be---in his words---knowledge workers---who will improve manufacturing processes and technologies as well as devise uses for the products Foxconn will build.
In a stop at the Milwaukee Business Journal---Woo defended Foxconn’s decision to produce smaller screens at the plant instead of the large liquid crystal display panels that were first announced. Those smaller screens would be used in the auto industry and for standard-sized TVs. He pointed out that when the Mount Pleasant facility is finally completed it will already be a couple of years behind plants now being built in China that will produce those large screens. They are used for the 65 and 75-inch TVs. Woo said, “we can’t bring in a technology that doesn’t fit with the market environment.”
Democratic state legislators are renewing their criticism of Foxconn, alleging a lack of transparency. At a news conference earlier this week---Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said that Governor Scott Walker should provide taxpayers with updated investment figures---job numbers---and---compensation estimates. Representative Dana Wachs said the Foxconn project could be “the mother of all bait-and-switches.”
A spokesperson for Governor Walker responded, saying that Foxconn “is committed to 13,000 good-paying, family-supporting jobs---and---a $10 billion dollar investment in Wisconsin.”
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