One thing U.S. President Donald Trump loves is positive headline news.
“Apple has just announced a record 500 billion dollar investment in the United States of America. The reason, faith in what we are doing, without which, they wouldn’t be investing ten cents. Thank you Tim Cook and Apple!!!” Trump proclaimed in all caps on Truth Social, his social media network.
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This post was in response to Apple’s announcement early Monday. The company said it will spend $500 billion in the U.S. to add 20,000 jobs over the next few years.
The plan partially hinges on constructing and opening a new 250,000-square-foot server-manufacturing site in Houston by 2026. The server farm will bring jobs to the U.S. and be a hub to support Apple Intelligence, Apple’s generative AI program.
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However, the devil is always in the details, and Trump may not be so happy with the news if he reads past the headlines.
Tim Cook’s Apple made a big announcement about its business.
TheStreet/Getty
Apple and big companies play ‘jobs numbers’ game
A Wall Street Journal analysis shows that even though Apple has touted multiple job creation programs over the past seven years (spanning two presidents and three presidential terms), the company’s overall U.S. employment has steadily dropped since 2018.
A jobs base of nearly 30,000 in the States in 2018 has been cut by nearly two-thirds to just over 10,000 in 2023, despite the company’s jobs pledges during Trump’s first term in 2018, another pledge during Biden’s term in 2021, and this week’s 20,000 jobs pledge.
If Apple adds 20,000 jobs over the next four years, it would be a sharp departure from its recent trajectory. In 2023, Apple reduced its workforce by 4,500 people.
It’s not just Apple that makes these types of grandiose pledges.
Foxconn, an Apple manufacturing contractor working with the company on the Houston site, also announced in 2018 that it would invest $10 billion and create up to 13,000 jobs at a plant in Wisconsin. The President even attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the plant.
However, just months later, after already receiving the President’s plaudits and positive press coverage, the Taiwanese company scaled back its investment to just under $700 million to create 1,450 jobs.
And the phenomenon is not just tied to big tech.
Walmart, GM, and other big-name companies also made similar job promises during the Trump administration, according to the Journal. However, further analysis shows that the job cuts the companies made during that time more than overwhelmed the supposed investments they were making.
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GM, for instance, said it would spend $1 billion to create or keep 1,500 U.S. manufacturing jobs, but the company’s U.S. headcount shrank overall during Trump’s first term.
Private sector job growth vs. public sector job cuts
President Trump doesn’t just love positive headlines about private sector jobs; he has also made it his mission to dismantle tens of thousands of public sector jobs in his second term.
Trump has given Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (it is actually not a governmental department) free reign to reduce the federal workforce.
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This is a departure from his predecessor.
Under Biden, the total of non-U.S. Postal Service federal employees as a share of overall payroll employment rose slightly to 1.52% from 1.47% during the last two years of his presidency.
Despite the increase, the total of federal workers is still hovering near its historic low of 1.4% from late 2000, according to Reuters.
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