Apple's iPhone. Made in Brazil?  Apple’s iPhone and iPad manufacturer, Foxconn, asked São Paulo state Secretary of Labor, Davi Zaia, to provide some sort of guarantee that the state actually has the skilled workforce needed to produce the mother boards and other sophisticated technologies used in making Apple branded smart phones and tablets.  According to São Paulo’s largest daily, Folha de São Paulo, Zaia told reporters on Saturday in the interior city of Riberão Preto that his department would be providing specialized training for 35,000 software and tech professionals. Foxconn “will likely create around 3,000 jobs, mainly on the assembly line, and then the total number of employees needed should reach close to 10,000. We will meet Foxconn’s staffing requirements,” he told reporters.  Foxconn is already in São Paulo state, Brazil, manufacturing hardware for Dell and Hewlett Packard. There has been rumors floating around for at least a year that Apple was interested in using Brazil as a manufacturing hub for Latin America, if not just Brazil, which is a big mobile phone and burgeoning tablet market.  Earlier this month, Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff was in China for the third annual BRIC Summit (South Africa included, so BRICS in this case) where an alleged informal agreement was made between Rousseff and Taiwanese executives of Foxconn to finally launch the Apple project in the interior of São Paulo.  No official confirmation has been made on either side, however, other than the fact that the two sides are talking about a possible investment at least one top Brazilian official — Aloizio Mercadente, the Minister of Science and Technology — said could reach R$19 billion ($12.1 billion) over the next 10 years.  In Folha de São Paulo, Zaia reportedly said that if Foxconn does indeed open a new factory in the state, it would either be in Campinas, São Jose dos Campos or Ribeirão Preto. Campinas is a major university city with a mid-sized airport and connection to São Paulo city’s busy Congonhas airport. São Jose is home to major multinationals like Embraer and General Motors.
Foxconn asks Brazil if it can guarantee labor force to build high tech Apple tablets and smartphones. Logico!