Foxconn’s Vietnam workers poached as hiring battle heats up amid US-China trade tensions

A Foxconn executive says poaching of employees ‘shouldn’t be condoned’
Foxconn has been making electronics in Vietnam for years, even before the US trade war with China began under the Trump administration

Foxconn

Bloomberg

Published: 1:53pm, 11 Jun 2022

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Foxconn Technology Group is facing a battle of talent in Vietnam as major suppliers to Apple Inc continue to shift some capacity from China to the Southeast Asia country on prolonged tensions between Beijing and Washington.

The chairman of Taiwan-based Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, said the company's Chinese rivals in Vietnam had set up operations near its campuses to poach its employees.

“The move shouldn’t be condoned,” Young Liu told reporters in Taipei on Saturday, without naming any companies.

Young Liu, chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, has criticised the poaching of his company’s employees. File photo: Bloomberg

Three of Foxconn’s China-based competitors are now in Vietnam: Luxshare Precision Industry and GoerTek make AirPods there, while BYD is preparing to produce iPads.

Foxconn, the prime contract manufacturing partner of Apple, now employs about 60,000 people in Vietnam, the company’s largest manufacturing base outside of China, Liu said.

He added that Foxconn would “significantly” increase the numbers of employees in Vietnam over the next one to two years, without providing a specific number.

During the Trump administration, the US implemented various measures including tariffs on certain products imported from China in an attempt to reshape global supply chains. The Biden administration is looking to reconfigure the China tariffs, but US officials have not made major changes so far.

While Foxconn still relies on China for most of its production, the world’s largest contract electronics maker has had to make adjustments to mitigate risks from the trade war.

Customers shop for smart phone cases at a makeshift market in Bac Giang province. File photo: Bloomberg

The Taiwanese company had planned to move some production of iPads and MacBooks to a new plant in the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Giang, Bloomberg News reported in 2020.

The site was originally slated to begin production in 2021, with the Vietnamese government saying the company could invest US$700 million that year.

It is unclear whether that site is now up and running, and Liu did not offer an update on the construction progress on Saturday. Foxconn has been making electronics in Vietnam for years, even before the US trade war with China began under the Trump administration.