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Comment by povertyworld | Hacker News Reader

The article reveals that the people working the Mac Pro assembly line in Texas where paid the minimum wage which in Texas is currently $7.25 an hour. When the plant closes, those guys can apply to any fast food place in Austin, and make the same money.

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So if they have 5000 people working there, 5000 people will be looking for those "McJobs".

Many of them won't find another job, or at least not quick enough to provide food on the table.

According to the article, demand for the Mac Pro tapered off years ago, and they were down to "a skeleton crew". The original plant opening had some kind of tax deal for "up to 500 jobs", so even at peak it was not making a huge difference. Texas supposedly has a 3.8% unemployment rate right now, so there is apparently a lot of work available. I like Apple, but assembling the Mac Pro in Texas was overrated.

>but might have been even lower in 2013

$7.25 has been the federal minimum wage since 2009

Austin is so expensive even fast food places advertise $14 an hr.

Yeah, I was going to say, they should go to where ever the local Amazon fulfillment center is. Those places are always hiring and start at $15 an hour.

Working at an Amazon fulfillment center is not for the faint of heart. There's a reason they're always hiring. The physical requirements of the job are easy to overlook.

The lost Apple jobs shrink the Austin market for labor.

Apple paying their workers the absolute minimum required by law is also not good, they have almost 1 trillion dollars ffs

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