Foxconn held its second annual “Foxconn Day” on Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which included a job fair and “tech talk.”
Foxconn was on campus looking to hire students interested in careers involving “industrial artificial intelligence, smart display, high-performance computing, 5G networks, industrial big data,” according to a press release from the company.
Details about the job fair and “tech talk” were vague and Foxconn officials didn’t respond to questions about job needs or the talk from WPR by deadline.
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The company didn’t say how many positions are available in Wisconsin. Foxconn had 79 job openings in Racine, Mount Pleasant and Milwaukee on its website as of Wednesday afternoon.
The day-long event was at UW-Milwaukee’s Engineering Mathematical Sciences building and attracted several dozens of students at a time, who were given swag and asked to fill out their information.
Erik Ekstrand, of Mukwonago, graduated with an engineering degree in May from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. He said Foxconn has been on his list of potential employers and was hoping to talk to a recruiter Wednesday.
“They didn’t tell me about any specific types of jobs, but they told me they could find someone who would know where to put me in the company,” Ekstrand said. “Right now they are starting with packaging jobs and working their way to the product development jobs, which is where I would want to work.”
Foxconn held its second annual “Foxconn Day” Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The event included a job fair and “tech talk.” Corrinne Hess/WPR
Wilkistar Otieno, chair of UW-Milwaukee’s Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department, has collaborated with Foxconn on proposals and said she’s happy the company is intersted in growing Wisconsin’s workforce.
“And you know, hopeful as well that when Foxconn comes there will be some development ongoing and changes in our community,” said Otieno, who was at the job fair. “I guess Foxconn is one of those that is leading in automation.”
Foxconn and UW-Milwaukee have created a strong partnership.
In 2018, the two, along with Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan, created an international co-op program allowing UW-Milwaukee engineering students to study at the university for five months before returning to UW-Milwaukee to complete their degrees. Earlier this year, 12 students from its College of Engineering and Applied Science spent time working at Foxconn’s plant in Tawain and attending class at Chung Yuang Christian University.
Austin Wesner, 23, is a biomedical engineering student who was one of the students who went to Taiwan.
“I loved it,” Wesner said. “I learned a lot about their culture and got to get inside and get work experience. They allowed us to work in an industry that is highly sought after around the world.”
The Taiwanese company fell short of its Wisconsin employment goal in 2018, hiring 178 full-time workers instead of the targeted 260. As a result, it failed to earn a tax credit of up to $9.5 million.
Earlier this year, Gov. Tony Evers said Foxconn will likely hire 1,500 people in 2020, not 1,800 as the company originally planned.
Foxconn began vertical construction on its manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant in August, marking the beginning of what will be the nearly 1 million-square-foot plant the company is calling its Gen 6 Fab building.
This building is where smaller screens for cell phones and iPads could be manufactured.
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