UPDATED 19:00 EDT / JANUARY 17 2018

INFRA

Apple pledges $350B toward US economy with repatriated overseas cash

Apple Inc. announced today that it will contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy as it brings most of its overseas cash holdings back to the country to fuel domestic investments and hire thousands of new employees.

The announcement led to a modest bump in Apple’s shares, which rose 1.7 percent today.

Apple said the recently passed U.S. tax plan requires it to pay $38 billion to repatriate its foreign cash, a payment Apple said “would likely be the largest of its kind ever made.” Based on current tax rates, Apple’s repatriation tax suggests that the company is planning on moving more than $245 billion back to the U.S., but the company said in a press release that overseas profits currently account for “approximately $75 billion of Apple’s direct contribution.”

According to Apple, its contribution to the U.S. economy will focus on three key areas that the company said will have “the greatest impact on job creation.” These areas include direct hiring for Apple itself, spending and investments in domestic suppliers and manufacturers, and the growing app ecosystem for the App Store.

“Apple is a success story that could only have happened in America, and we are proud to build on our long history of support for the U.S. economy,” Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a statement. “We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness.”

Apple plans to invest $30 billion in capital expenditures, a third of which will go toward new and existing U.S. data centers. The company said it will also hire more than 20,000 new employees, an increase of nearly 25 percent over the 84,000 people who already work for Apple in the country.

Some of the new hires will work at a yet another new Apple campus that the company expects to announce later this year. According to Apple, the new campus will be initially dedicated to technical support for customers, but its role could expand in the future.

Workers_in_Dallas_Apple_factory_01172018

In addition, Apple said that it will increase its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to $5 billion, up from the $1 billion Apple invested when it launched the fund last year. The company also plans to expand its educational initiatives that teach coding to children and young adults, and it will launch new programs to support teachers and teacher training.

Although Apple’s new spending plan is a huge leap for its U.S. business, the company had already been investing in domestic growth over the last year. For example, Apple recently invested $390 million in an American optics company that produces components for iPhone X’s Face ID features. Last year, Cook told the New York Times that Apple has a “moral responsibility to help grow the economy, to help grow jobs, to contribute to this country and to contribute to the other countries that we do business in.”

Of course, the new tax plan appears to have encouraged Apple to invest more than it might have previously planned. It remains to be seen whether other U.S. tech giants might follow Apple’s example.

Photos: Apple

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