According to reports from The China Morning News (via MICGadget), Foxconn is in the midst of a huge hiring drive, hoping to increase numbers by 20,000 for production of the new iPhone in Taiyuan of the Shanxi Province in Northern China.
One reason for heavy and perhaps unforecasted recruitment demand might be a strike that is currently happening at the plant. According to a separate report, workers left their machines and took to the streets over compensation. We are not going to pretend to understand the complexities involved, but it would appear the workers were promised a raise ahead of the next iPhone production and might not have received all that they asked for.
Mr. Yu, an insider at Tai Yuan Foxconn, says that the company still has tons of openings, especially front-line workers. “As long as they meet the basic standards, (we’ll) take as many as possible.”
Given Apple’s prominent position in the industry, Foxconn has made iPhone production its foremost priority in mainland China. Mr. Yu says that Foxconn gets about 85% of the total order of iPhone 5, which translates into about 57 million units per year.
A video of the striking workers is below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=terMblxV7nQ]
- Foxconn ramping up iPhone production with $1.1B investment (9to5mac.com)
- Foxconn employee tells us that the next iPhone is ready for production, indicates likely summer launch (9to5mac.com)
