What you need to know

  • Foxconn's Wisconsin factory is set to open up in May 2020.
  • The plant will employ 1,500 at first and ramp up to 1,820 by the end of the year.
  • It's a far cry from the 13,000 jobs president Donald Trump promised last year, which Foxconn has until 2032 to actually fill out.

Foxconn's long-awaited Wisconsin factory is finally opening in May 2020. Governor Tony Evers confirmed the news in an interview with CNBC, clarifying the murky situation regarding the plant.

However, the factory will only employ 1,500, below the company's original goal of 1,800.

But the governor said the project's initial phase will employ only about 1,500 people when production begins, which is currently scheduled for next May. That would be well short of the company's previously announced plans to hire more than 1,800 people by the end of next year.

Foxconn plans on filling up the remixing 300 jobs by the end of the year or risk missing out on a $270 million tax credit as part of a $4 billion incentive program that proved to be controversial.

Foxconn has until 2032 to fill out 13,000 jobs president Donald Trump and former state governor Scott Walker promised a year ago when the factory broke ground.

Foxconn's agreement with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC), the state's business development arm, calls for the company to create the 13,000 jobs by 2032. The deal calls for the company to do its hiring in phases, meeting specific targets in order to qualify for subsidies of around $3 billion.

The payments are part of a controversial package totaling more than $4 billion in incentives and other assistance the state agreed to in 2017, believed to be the largest such package ever offered to a foreign company in the U.S.

The Verge published an expose back in April that outlined how slow progress was coming along, marred with empty building that were unoccupied or still inhabited by former tenants. Foxconn shot down the report, but given its tepid start next year, it seems this plant is as unorganized as the expose claimed it was.

Foxconn is a main manufacturing partner of Apple for the iPhone, but the plant in Wisconsin will not help assemble any parts for Apple for the time being.