The report of an employee death last Friday at tech manufacturing firm Foxconn Technology Group, which was confirmed as a suicide, is the ninth such incident this year, bringing the firm’s employment practices under scrutiny.
Foxconn, founded in 1988 in southern China, manufactures most of Apple’s iPhones and iPods, as well as devices for other multinational technology firms, including Sony, Dell and Nokia.
With a workforce aged mostly between 18 and 24, and workers living and working on the same premises with on-site dormitories housed beside the offices and manufacturing plants, several employees report long hours, low wages and much overtime.
Quoted in the Financial Times, 22-year-old logistics worker Lü Pengguo, said: “The monotonous work I do here is not in line with my idea of life, it doesn’t make any sense. My dad says I should keep the job. But as soon as I find something better, I’ll leave.”
By Marie Boran
Photo: Foxconn Technology Group is the main manufacture of the Apple iPod
