Apple Claims Creation of 514,000 Jobs in US

Cupertino-based Apple Inc. has drawn much flak in recent times over its policy of manufacturing its products outside the United States. A number of business analysts believe Apple should be more pro-active when it comes to creating jobs within the country.

Steve Jobs, the company's late founder and Chief Executive, reportedly once told President Obama that the Apple jobs were not coming back. However, in his recent biography, he is quoted as saying some might... if the US facilitated skilled immigrants get work visas, besides training more domestic engineers.

Overall, Apple's response seems to be a positive one. They have claimed to have created over 500,000 jobs in the United States, either directly or indirectly.

According to details posted on the company Web site, Apple says they have created a total of 514,000 jobs.

Apparently Apple claims to have created 304,000 jobs as a result of Apple and its business partners and a further 210,000 as a result of the "iOS app economy".

The first category comprises 47,000 Apple employees with another 257,000 at companies like Samsung, Corning, FedEx and UPS, all of whom are aprt of Apple's supply chain. The latter of the above two figures was calculated based on employment multipliers published the US government and applied to Apple's domestic expenditures.

Apple also highlighted its in-house recruitment efforts, stating that 47,000 of its existing 70,000 employees are US-based, with 7,800 surplus US jobs added in 2011.

The support staff includes 7,700 AppleCare Advisors in the US alone with another small portion of the jobs being outsourced to foreign countries such as India. The outsourcing idea is aimed at cutting call centre operating costs up to 50 percent. However, Apple has apparently opted to retain a majority of jobs in the US to maintain high quality customer service standards.

On the application economy front, Apple suggests its $4 billion investment (from four years ago) has created 210,000 new jobs in that time.

Finally, the report also says that with 248,000 registered iOS developers in the US and over 5,000 iOS developer jobs listed on Indeed.com, Apple envisioned a strong growth for its industry in the future.