In total, there have been 13 suicides and suicide attempts at Foxconn factories this year. “We’re all over this,” said Mr Jobs at the All Things Digital conference in California. Foxconn has said that it will give its assembly line workers a 30% pay rise. The firm had previously said that it would offer a 20% pay increase to its Chinese workers, who earn 900 yuan (£90) per month at entry-level. “We hope the hike in wages will help improve the living standards of the workers and allow them to have more leisure time, which is good for their health,” an official of Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai precision told AFP.
According to information received by Blog Andalas Comunity that Hon Hai Precision is the world’s largest producer of consumer electronics, and employs 800 000 workers worldwide, mostly in China. Foxconn makes a variety of products for manufacturers including Apple, Dell and Motorola. Death has shone the spotlight on working conditions in factories, where workers – often from rural China – to work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. But Mr. Jobs defended the condition. “You go in this place and that the factory, but, gosh, they have restaurants and cinemas, hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it was pretty good,” he said.
Surreal moment Mr Jobs addressed a number of other issues at the All Things Digital conference. Last week, Apple overtook Microsoft to become the world’s largest technology company by market value. “For those of us that have been in the industry a long time, it’s surreal. But it doesn’t matter very much, it’s not what’s important,” Mr Jobs said. “It’s not what makes you come to work every morning.”
He also claimed that Apple’s controversial move to block Adobe Flash animation and video technology from its popular iPhones and iPads was “a technical decision”. “We didn’t start off to have a war with Flash or anything else,” he said. The comments are the latest step in a long-running dispute between Apple and Adobe over the Flash platform.