Foxconn recruits 400,000 more staff

Robert Clark | August 19, 2010

telecomseurope.net

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Foxconn, the world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer, plans to hire up to 400,000 new staff in the next year as it revamps its business in the wake of a rash of staff suicides.

The Taiwan-owned company will workforce to between 1.2 million and 1.3 million people after sales soared 50% in the first half of the year, Bloomberg reported.

Company executives said at a press conference in Shenzhen yesterday they will establish more plants in inland provinces Henan and Sichuan because they are closer to workers’ homes.

A dozen workers have jumped to their deaths at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant this year, drawing international scrutiny to the firm’s operations, where it assembles products for Apple, HP, Dell and other major western brands.

The company plans to reduce its workforce in Shenzhen from 470,000 today to between 300,000 and 350,000 over the next five years, converting factories into R&D and quality-testing centers, WSJ reported.

Louis Woo, special assistant to chairman Terry Guo, said Foxconn plans to cut overtime to 36 hours a month from about 80 hours now, the Journal reported.

However, the company has no plans to take down the 3.5 million square meters of safety nets installed around dormitories at its plants across China to combat suicides.

Foxconn, which employs 920,000 people in mainland China, began a series of worker’s rallies across the country on Tuesday, aimed at boosting morale.

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Robert Clark