World’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou ramps up hiring as Foxconn chairman reassures on China supply chain

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant is offering a bonus of 8,000 yuan for former employees who return regularly to the assembly line
The hiring spree at Foxconn comes amid promising signs that China will remain a key manufacturing base for Apple

Apple

Iris Dengin Shenzhen

Published: 10:30pm, 28 Jun 2023

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The world’s largest iPhone factory has ramped up hiring in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou ahead of new product launches expected later in 2023, according to local reports and labour agents.

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant is offering a bonus of 8,000 yuan (US$1,105) for former employees who return regularly to the assembly line for peak seasons, according to a job posting on Monday by the company’s Product Enclosure Business Group unit, which is responsible for producing mechanical parts for the iPhone.

Referrals are also encouraged, with the company offering a 1,000 yuan reward to staff for each new worker that they successfully recommend. Foxconn is also offering a one-off 7,000 yuan bonus to people who join during the peak season under referrals and stay for at least four months.

The factory, which saw production disrupted last year during China’s strict Covid-19 controls, currently has high demand for workers, with recruiting agencies in Zhengzhou “building a talent pool” to prepare for the upcoming peak season, a local recruiter said. The recruiter, who gave her surname as Zhao, is hiring both permanent employees as well as short-term workers at an hourly rate of 21.5 yuan.

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Foxconn’s plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen is also offering a bonus of up to 6,980 yuan for new hires, according to recruitment posts on Tuesday.

The hiring spree at Foxconn comes amid promising signs that China will remain a key manufacturing base for Apple despite moves by the US tech giant and its suppliers to ramp up production capacity in other countries, such as India and Vietnam, amid geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

Liu Young-way, CEO and chairman of Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Technology Group, denied at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin on Wednesday that the company planned to move its supply chain out of China, according to a report by nationalist tabloid Global Times.

Liu has been on a charm offensive with Chinese mainland plants this year, with multiple visits and meetings with local officials to play down talk of relocation. In May he told workers and officials in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province, that the company had no plans to leave the city and that its plant – which employs over 100,000 people – remains an “important” production base.

Earlier this year Liu visited Zhengzhou to unveil a new business centre in the city, which is the capital of central Henan province.

However, diversification of Apple’s supply chain remains in play. Foxconn plans to add two more buildings at its iPhone production facility in Chennai, capital of the southernmost Indian state of Tamil Nadu, according to a report earlier this year by Mumbai-based daily newspaper The Economic Times.