I don't often read the New York Times. I prefer the Wall Street Journal. Well, to be truthful, I'm an avid fan of the New York Post. How can you not love their headline writers?

Fortunately, my friends Vicki and John Masella subscribe to the New York Times. They recently shared with me a thought-provoking article by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher titled "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work."

The focus of the article is how Apple, which once proudly advertised that its products were made in America, now outsources its manufacturing of iPhones and iPads, and iPods.

According to the authors, "Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads, and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas." When President Obama asked the late Steve Jobs, "Why can't that work come home?" Jobs replied, "Those jobs aren't coming back."

As one Apple executive so eloquently put it, "We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible."

According to Apple executives quoted in the article, Apple believes Chinese factories, Chinese supply chains and the skills of Chinese workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that American manufacturing is no longer "a viable option for most Apple products."

As an example, the authors explain how in 2007, Apple redesigned the iPhone screen within months of its scheduled release date. The new screens began arriving at the factory in China around midnight. The factory foreman woke the 8,000 workers living in on-site factory dormitories and within 30 minutes had them working a 12-hour shift.

An Apple executive told the authors that the "speed and flexibility of the Chinese system is breathtaking" and that "no American plant could match that." Sounds like Alabama before the Civil War.

Some Apple critics argue that Apple's business plan is concerned more with "slave labor, convenience and cost" more than anything else.

They point to the fact that working conditions at Foxconn Technology, where Apple products are made, are a tad harsh. For example, employees often have to stand for 12 hours a day and that talking to your co-workers is forbidden. (Foxconn gained notoriety in 2010 when 14 workers committed suicide by jumping out of company windows; the company responded by putting nets outside the window and locking doors to the roof.)

While I'm not condoning Foxconn's business model, I would argue that we would be remiss at looking at how they run their factories solely through an American prism.

My friend, Mei Ling, who lives and works in Beijing, wrote to me that for many of Foxconn's workers, their jobs are a step up the employment ladder compared to their lives before Foxconn.

My European friends, who average about five vacation weeks a year, wonder about our model where an American worker averages two to three vacation weeks at most. The difference in vacation and holiday time is one of many reasons that my friends consider the American model Dickensian.

It all depends on your perspective.

For me, the crux of the article is whether American can (or should) be competing for the lower-skilled jobs described in the article. All business model arguments aside, the article explains what the American economy is up against and why there may be no turning back, especially for manufacturing companies employing a lower-skilled workforce.

Train all the workers you want, if we can't match their ability to get 8,000 workers up at midnight to work a 12-hour shift at 70 cents an hour, we simply won't be able to compete.

And we probably shouldn't compete for those jobs.

Perhaps they aren't the manufacturing jobs our economy needs. They certainly aren't the middle-skill jobs (jobs requiring more than a high-school education but less than a four-year degree) that pay a livable wage that I want to see in the North Country.

We should focus on the projections that the majority of job growth in the future will be in jobs requiring middle skills. Unfortunately, we aren't training sufficient numbers of people with the skills to meet employer demand.

If we don't address the gap between the skills job seekers have and the skills employers need, the recovery may continue to be jobless for millions of Americans.

Paul Grasso is the executive director of the North Country Workforce Investment Board, the counties' designated workforce development planning agency, and the North Country Workforce Partnership Inc.