Apple’s Chinese supply chain workers want better jobs, maybe

This is not a Chinese iPhone factory

In China, it seems, workers are voting with their feet and beginning to decline the opportunity to work on the iPhone production lines in favor of jobs which are, perhaps, less mind-numbing.

Chinese workers seem to want better

That’s what seems to be happening according to the South China Morning Post, which tells us Apple’s suppliers are offering record  bonuses as they try to convince people to make smartphones for Cupertino.

The report observes that young Chinese are less willing to work in these factories than before, which is prompting suppliers to make these offers. This is a problem for Foxconn, Luxshare, Lens Technology and other Apple suppliers.

“Apple suppliers in China, including the world’s largest iPhone factory, are raising their starter bonuses amid stiff competition for the shrinking pool of young people willing to do manufacturing jobs,” reads the report.

The average income for rural workers has nearly tripled in that time, further reducing desire to work in the iPhone factories. Minimum wages are also climbing. They have doubled from 800 yuan to 1,900 yuan across the last decade.

To put that in perspective that’s around $300 up from $125, which isn’t a massive amount of money even in China. (Interestingly, it’s a much bigger rate of growth than we’ve seen in the US or the UK, which may mean something).

.What’s making matters challenging is Apples aggressive need to build up to 150 million iPhones in 2H2021 as it seeks to meet existing demand and to serve up the all-new iPhone, perhaps next month. That’s a problem for Foxconn, where 80% of global iPhones are made at one huge factory, as a result of which it now offers a bonus of 10,200 yuan (US$1,578) if they stay with its Digital Product Business Group (iDPBG) for at least 90-days.

China’s Apple Sanlitun.

Long pay, long hours, what’s the point?

Foxconn’s primary iPhone manufacturing facility employs hundreds of thousands of people and has regularly made news headlines, not just for the products coming out of the place, but also the many challenges faced in terms of working conditions in a factory the size of a city.

“These places aren’t like cities,” Thomas Dinges of iSuppli once said. “They are cities.” The difference being that the main purpose of these places seems to be boring and repetitive work.

Low pay, long hours, little family contact and extended overtime characterize life in these places, reports claim, and this has generated real problems around mental health.

That’s not to say the iPhone 13 (or whatever it is called) will be boring, or repetitive.

This year’s model will ship with an amazing A-series Apple processor containing highly sophisticated machine learning tools augmented by a user interface that “just works”. And a little state surveillance, of course.

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