Foxconn boosts staff wages

Apple, Dell and HP manufacturer announces pay rise following worker suicides

10 Foxconn Shenzhen factory workers are reported to have committed suicide this year

Production-line workers at Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese electronics firm blighted by a spate of staff suicides, are to receive a 30 per cent pay increase.

The firm is responsible for the manufacture of products by Apple, Dell and HP. It has been subject to scrutiny by all three vendors after 10 workers at the company's production site in Shenzhen, China are reported to have committed suicide this year.

According to reports, Foxconn’s flagship company Hon Hai Precision Industry has agreed to increase workers’ wages by 30 per cent with immediate effect, in order to deter staff from taking on too much overtime.

In a statement to the press, a Foxconn representative said: “With the pay raise, we hope workers do not need to work overtime as much and thus gain more time for leisure and have a happier working environment.”

Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen is home to 400,000 workers, who live in dormitories on-site.

Speaking at the All Things Digital conference in California yesterday, Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs defended conditions at the factory.

"You go in this place and it is a factory," he said. "But they have restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it is pretty nice."