Foxconn Says Male Employee Found Dead Outside Dormitory in Shenzhen Campus
Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou
Maurice Tsai
Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou felt “guilty” about the deaths after he at first “did not see this as a serious problem,” he said in a September interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.
Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou felt “guilty” about the deaths after he at first “did not see this as a serious problem,” he said in a September interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. Photographer: Maurice Tsai
Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg Businessweek editor Josh Tyrangiel talks about the magazine's cover story on Foxconn Technology Group and Chairman Terry Gou. Tyrangiel speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)
Foxconn Says Male Worker Found Dead at China Campus
Frederik Balfour/Bloomberg
An Aug. 18 rally held by the company and its labor union called on employees to “treasure your life, care for your family” after at least 10 employees committed suicide this year.
An Aug. 18 rally held by the company and its labor union called on employees to “treasure your life, care for your family” after at least 10 employees committed suicide this year. Photographer: Frederik Balfour/Bloomberg
Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest contract maker of electronics, said a worker was found dead outside a company dormitory earlier today, the first reported death at the manufacturer since 100,000 employees staged a “Treasure your life” rally in August.
The body of the 23-year old male worker was found around 1:20 a.m. at Foxconn’s Guanlan campus in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the company said in an e-mailed statement sent through its public relations agency Burson-Marsteller. Louis Woo, a spokesman for Foxconn, said the cause of death hasn’t been determined.
An Aug. 18 rally held by the company and its labor union called on employees to “treasure your life, care for your family” after at least 10 employees committed suicide this year. Founder and Chairman Terry Gou felt “guilty” about the deaths after he at first “did not see this as a serious problem,” he said in a September interview with Bloomberg Businessweek
Foxconn has expressed condolences to the family of the most recently-deceased worker and are providing them with assistance, it said in today’s statement. Foxconn is cooperating with a police investigation, it said.
Expanding Workforce
The maker of Apple Inc. iPads and Hewlett-Packard Co. computers employs more than 900,000 people across at least 20 factories in China and plans to expand its workforce to as many as 1.3 million by the end of next year. China has a suicide rate of 21.2 per 100,000 according to data from the World Health Organization.
Foxconn has more than doubled wages in Shenzhen, its largest manufacturing base, and begun moving factories to inland China, closer to most workers’ hometowns. Labor groups including China Labor Watch have called the company a sweatshop which tramples workers’ rights, allegations Gou has denied.
Personal problems and compensation packages offered to bereaved families caused most of the suicides, Gou said at Hon Hai’s annual shareholder meeting in June.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net.
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