When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

去年二月份，奧巴馬在加州與矽谷頂級名流會餐，出席嘉賓每人須向總統提一個問題。



But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

輪到蘋果老總喬布斯發言時，奧巴馬用自己的問題打斷他的話：如何才能讓蘋果在美國生産手機？



Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

不久前，蘋果号稱其産品産自美國，如今，幾乎沒有。蘋果公司去年共售出七千萬台手機、三千萬台平闆電腦及五千九百萬件其它産品，幾乎全部産自海外。



Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

奧巴馬問到，爲什麽這些工作不能回到美國？



Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

據另一位在場嘉賓講，喬布斯直截了當地答到：＂這些工作不會回來了。＂



The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

總統的提問觸及蘋果的中心信念。不僅僅是海外員工更廉價，蘋果執行官們相信海外工廠的龐大規模及外國工人的靈活性、敬業精神及工業技能遠遠超過美國，以至于對大多數蘋果産品來說＂美國制造＂不再是一個可行的選項。



Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

蘋果已經成爲地球上最著名、最受崇敬、最被他人模仿的公司之一，如此成就部分歸功于蘋果将全球運作發揮得淋漓盡緻。去年，蘋果員工人均盈利四十萬美元，超過高盛、埃克森美孚和谷歌。



However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

但最令奧巴馬、經濟學家、決策者及許多高科技同行沮喪的是：蘋果遠不如其它著名公司那樣熱衷于在它們的鼎盛時期創造美國工作。



Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost every electronics designer relies upon to build their wares.

蘋果在美國雇傭四萬三千人，海外員工爲兩萬，僅爲通用汽車在上世紀五十年代四十萬美國職工的零頭，通用電氣在八十年代的美國雇員也高達數十萬。更多的人則爲蘋果的供應商工作：約七十萬人設計、制造、組裝iPads、iPhones及其它蘋果産品。這些人幾乎都不在美國工作，而是受雇于位于亞洲、歐洲及其它地區的外國公司，幾乎每一個的電子工程師都依靠這些廠家生産産品。



“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now. If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried. ” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

直到去年一直擔任白宮經濟顧問的Jared Bernstein表示：＂爲什麽在美國創造中産階級職位這麽難，蘋果就是一個例子。如果這就是資本主義的巅峰，我們應當擔憂。＂



Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

蘋果執行官稱在目前，走向海外是他們唯一的出路。一位前執行官描述了蘋果如何依靠一家中國公司在發售前僅僅數周對蘋果手機的生産進行調整。蘋果在最後一分鍾改變了手機屏幕的設計，生産線被迫全面調整。新屏幕于深夜陸續運抵廠房。



A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

據這位前執行官介紹，一位工頭立刻在公司宿舍内喚醒八千名員工。每位員工派發一塊餅幹和一杯茶，分别指派到各個工作崗位，不到半小時就開始了給斜面框架安裝玻璃屏幕的長達12個小時的班次。96小時之内，這家工廠就以每日過萬台的速度生産手機。