The Times seems to consider that a BAD thing. It also states, "Companies and other economists say that notion is naïve. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say." So apparently those jobs soldering connections and screwing together consoles are only going to China because that is too complex for American HS grads to comprehend.

It should be noted that the only thing novel about the Foxconn factory suicide threat is the "mass" part; there have already been several past cases of despairing workers going up there and leaping individually. Apparently it was not noteworthy until a couple hundred did it at once. There is something deeply chilling about American CEOs whose reaction is "I wish America could be more like that. " They are working hard to achieve that dream.