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To be fair, Foxconn employs over 300,000 workers in Shenzen. Yes, really -- they are the world's largest electronics manufacturer. To put that in perspective,
by zach 16y ago
To be fair, Foxconn employs over 300,000 workers in Shenzen. Yes, really -- they are the world's largest electronics manufacturer. To put that in perspective, that's more than two Shenzen Foxconn employees for every living MIT alumnus. Three hundred thousand. That's a lot of people.
What has made these stories news is the suicide last July of a Foxconn employee who lost a prototype iPhone. However, suicides since then have not all been further results of product security breaches. Again, it's not entirely unexpected when you're talking about three hundred thousand people in close quarters that there will be some suicide, drama, criminality and perhaps even murder within that population. It's probably doing better by many measures than most cities of that size in the region.
- andrewtj 16y agoIn 1999 the suicide rate in China was 13 per 100,000 so my suspicion is that this story has only been up-voted for mud-slinging purposes. I'm a bit disappointed to see it on the front page — it doesn't strike me as being Hacker News.
- nandemo 16y agoWithout these 2 pieces of data from zach and you (which were not present in the article), it does look like news.
- jarek 16y agoAlso, the "make iPhones" note in HN submission title is a touch misleading considering Foxconn also makes pretty much everything else when it comes to electronics. I've stopped counting motherboard components I've seen with their logo on it.
- varjag 16y agoWhat is really interesting here, is how many jumps were committed from the same roof.
- wdewind 16y agoLook at Bobst Library's record at NYU...so many they (finally) put up plexiglass to prevent more.
- ximeng 16y agoHere is an article in Chinese about this incident: http://policy.caing.com/2010-05-13/100143630.html http://policy.caing.com/2010-05-13/100143630.html It says there are 400,000 people working for Foxconn in Shenzhen. 300,000 of these are unqualified workers aged about 20 years old. There is high turnover. They work for 10 hours a day, with 1 hour for lunch and 10 minutes in the day to go to the bathroom. After the financial crisis they have been cutting staff and work pressure has increased. Managers intentionally introduce faults on production lines to see if workers spot the errors, if they do not, they are punished. They are also punished for talking to each other or dozing off. There is a strict hierarchy, with little communication between managers and staff. Managers manage by shouting at staff, there is little respect for individuals. After 3 or 4 months working together colleagues don't even recognise each other. After the spate of suicides management has increased psychological support programs, but a spokesman says with 420,000 staff they are unable to understand everybody's mental health issues.