Hon Hai to Boost China Work Force to One Million This Year (won't take down suicide nets)

[mike r]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704557704575437131567877608.html

AUGUST 18, 2010
Hon Hai to Boost China Work Force to One Million This Year
By LORRAINE LUK

SHENZHEN — Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics products, said Wednesday it plans to significantly boost its China work force to underpin growth. At a news conference in Shenzhen, the company said it would increase its work force in China by 9% this year to one million. It also plans to raise its total China work force by a further 20% to 30% in 2011.

But the manufacturer said it will reduce the number of its workers in Shenzhen as it converts plants into research-and-development and quality-testing centers. The number of its Shenzhen workers will drop to between 300,000 and 350,000 employees within the next five years, from 470,000 now. The comments come after a spate of employee suicides at the company's main manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen. Hon Hai said Wednesday that 12 of its employees had committed suicide this year and another two had attempted suicide.

Hon Hai, which uses the trade name Foxconn and assembles products for the likes of Apple Inc. and Nokia Corp., has raised salaries and outfitted worker dormitories with safety nets in an effort to prevent more suicides at its plants. Louis Woo, special assistant to Hon Hai Chairman Terry Guo, told reporters the company has worked with psychologists and other experts to come up with measures to improve working conditions at its China plants, hoping to prevent more suicide attempts. Mr. Woo also said the company plans to cut overtime to 36 hours a month from about 80 hours now.

The suicides focused attention on working conditions at Hon Hai, which earlier Wednesday held a "morale boosting" employee rally with the company's labor union. Mr. Woo said the company has no plans to take down the 3.5 million square meters of safety nets — equivalent in size to 430 football fields — around worker dormitories in China as experts believe it is an effective way to prevent suicides...