Apple chief executive Steve Jobs last night defended conditions at Taiwan-based Foxconn, an iPhone-linked electronics producer plagued by a rash of worker suicides in China. 'Foxconn is not a sweatshop,' Jobs said during a conference in southern California.
Apple representatives at Foxconn are trying to work out why there have been a total of 13 suicides and suicide attempts so far this year at its plants in China and what can be done to derail the trend, according to Jobs. Apple contracts Foxconn to make the iPhone.
His comments came as it emerged that production line workers at Foxconn's southern China manufacturing hub will receive a 30% pay rise.
Jobs, who described the deaths as 'troubling', said young people leaving poor rural communities for jobs at Foxconn factories that are cities unto themselves might be overwhelmed trying to adjust to their new environments and to being far from friends and family.
Many workers are from poor inland provinces and harbour dreams of making big money in places like Shenzhen, the cradle of China's astonishing economic revolution over the border from Hong Kong.
They work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, assembling products that most cannot afford to buy themselves: Apple iPhones, Dell computers and Nokia mobiles.
'I think there are some real issues there,' Jobs said. 'We're trying to understand, before going in with a solution.'
A recent spate of suicides at Foxconn - 10 workers have leapt to their deaths from company buildings since the start of the year - has thrown a spotlight on China's factory conditions and the 200 million migrant workers who are helping to drive its economic rise.
The number of suicides at Foxconn is well below the official national average of roughly seven per 100,000 people. Foxconn's billionaire founder has pledged to address the problem while defending the company and blaming the suicides largely on workers' 'personal problems'.
