Of course you do not talk about cheap labor when you are exploiting it, from which all the speed, all the availability-at-any-time come from. The closest quote I can find is

The story is told of when Apple did a last minute design change on the Iphone. As soon as the parts came in, 8000 Chinese workers were immediately called in at midnight to start a 12 hour shift. An Apple executive is quoted as saying that the “speed and flexibility are breathtaking.”

Currently the reality on Chinese assembly lines is those expert workers are working 12 hour shifts for 1 day off every 14 days, and earns about $800-$1,000 a month.

It's a huge problem in China actually, those 996-esque working schedule is everywhere now, normal 955 or even 965 schedule is almost non-existent among domestic private employers. The sad thing is that sometimes some Act (like EU supply chain law) forces factories to 955 schedule but those line workers are not happy, because that means they don't get overtime and are making minimum wages like $300 a month, not even enough to live a life. Chinese got five day work week because of WTO, yet now many have lost it.

I'd buy that if you're talking about developing new products/new production lines, it's cheaper to have suppliers and know how hand - and it's great for margin optimization, because they have other production lines.

But that margin isn't funneled to pay wages and improve living standards.

To say wages don't play a role it's more of a corporate narrative to wash those decisions.

If wages aren't a factor, why don't they raise wages and living standards for those workers?