RACINE, Wisc.—The Foxconn Technology Group likely won’t be making LCD televisions in southeast
Wisconsin, despite being promised almost $5 billion in state and local subsidies to build a $10 billion high-tech manufacturing campus. “In Wisconsin we’re not building a factory,” Foxconn executive Louis Woo told Reuters in a story published Jan. 29. He explained that because of U.S. labor costs, it would be more profitable for the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer to fabricate parts in China and Japan and assemble the TVs in Mexico. “In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,” Woo said. “We can’t compete.” Former Gov. Scott Walker pushed through the subsidies after Foxconn promised to create 13,000 jobs, claiming it would bring good-paying blue-collar work back to the area south of Milwaukee. But Woo said the facility would be a “technology hub” with about three-quarters of the jobs in research and development and design, along with some assembly and packaging operations. In 2018, Foxconn created only about two-thirds of the 260 full-time jobs required to receive state tax incentives. A company source said it would probably hire about one-fifth of the 5,200 workers it expected to have by the end of 2020. Read more
