“Another worker has committed suicide at the south China manufacturing complex of iPhone maker Foxconn International Holdings Ltd, state media reported on Friday, the latest in a string of employees who have leapt to their deaths this year,” James Pomfret, Huang Yan and Kelvin Soh report for Reuters
“The employee ‘fell to death’ early on Friday at one of Foxconn’s manufacturing facilities in the southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, Xinhua News Agency reported,” Pomfret, Yan and Soh report. “‘The death was confirmed by the municipal government. No further information was immediately available,’ Xinhua said. Labour rights groups say there have been at least 13 suicides at Foxconn factories across China this year, not including Friday’s fatality.”
“The incident comes months after several Foxconn workers, mostly in Shenzhen, died after jumping from buildings in the company’s plants earlier this year,” Pomfret, Yan and Soh report. “The deaths threw an awkward spotlight on the labor practices of Foxconn, a unit of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, whose clients include Apple Inc…”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Every suicide is tragic. That said, China’s national suicide rate per 100,000 people is 6.6 per year. As of August this year, Foxconn had 920,000 employees and is on the way to increasing headcount to 1.3 million by next August.
The real story is that the suicide rate among Foxconn workers is dramatically lower than China’s overall suicide rate. Of course, that wouldn’t generate quite the number of page views for the hit-whores.
Note to the media: There are other things you can twist in order to fulfill your mission of trying to make Apple look bad. You vultures don’t have to stoop to exploiting suicide victims.