Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why they manufacture iphones in China, importance of vocational training

Companies coming to China are not motivated by low labor costs anymore. The reason lies in the abundance and quality of skilled workers, especially in tooling. China's vocational expertise is deep, thanks to their education system's emphasis on vocational education. Other countries are now recognizing the importance of this and trying to catch up. China was ahead of the curve in realizing the value of skilled labor. There's a confusion about China, and let me at least give you my opinion. The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I'm not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low labor cost country many years ago, and that is not the reason to come to China from a supply point of view. The reason is because of the skill, and the quantity of skill in one location, and the type of skill it is. The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have in tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. The tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields. It's that vocational expertise is very deep, very, very deep here. I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that, even when others were de-emphasizing vocational. Now I think many countries in the world have woke up and said, this is a key thing, and we've got to correct that, but China called that right from the beginning.