Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
theguardian.com
Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
1–10 of 84 posts
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#2It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#3It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.
That and it sounds like groups of workers regularly use the threat of suicide pacts to gain leverage over management-- not to improve conditions, or anything drastic-- just to get paid what they are owed.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#4It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.
Do you have a source?
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#5It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.
Do you have a source?
It's usually referred to as an increase in suicide rates for the unemployed:
long form: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/the-link-between-unem...
Random paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/02779536939...
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#6Doesn't Foxconn also manufacture products for many other companies? It doesn't matter because, at the end of the article:
"This is an edited extract from The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant, published by Bantam Press (£16.99). To order a copy for £14.44 go to bookshop.theguardian.com"
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#7The only thing that I can add is an anecdote.
Around 2000, I worked at a startup that was streamlining the globalization logistics for large manufacturers. One aspect of our software was a qualitative and quantitative rating system for factories in low-cost countries. One of our largest challenges was coming up with reliable scoring metrics that couldn't be gamed by the factories. Because Of this, we eventually had to resort to randomly sending physical auditors to factories.
I wasn't part of that side of the business, but we had systems that allowed these auditors to enter data and notes. It wasn't uncommon for them to report on suicides. At the time, we didn't know much about Chinese culture beyond what we understood through movies and such, so we thought that 'suicide' was a euphemism for 'forced suicide'. Who knows - But, people would just disappear, at least at a seemingly higher rate in China than elsewhere. It was quite chilling.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#8It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.
Let's not forget that the average age of Foxconn worker is only 23. According to (somewhat dated) WHO, that age group has the lowest suicide rate (http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/chin.pdf)
Number of suicides by age group and gender. CHINA (mainland, selected rural and urban areas*), 1999.
Age (years) 5-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ All
Males 83 626 1357 1287 1196 1165 1325 1009 8048
Females 64 915 1937 1351 1186 1017 1273 1045 8788
Total 147 1541 3294 2638 2382 2182 2598 2054 16836
the same age group has the lowest suicide rates in other countries (eg, US) as well.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#9Doesn't Foxconn also manufacture products for many other companies? It doesn't matter because, at the end of the article: "This is an edited extract from The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant, published by Bantam Press (£16.99). To order a copy for £14.44 go to bookshop.theguardian.com"
PlayStations, other cell phones, the nintendo switch,...
They manufacture everything
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#10Doesn't Foxconn also manufacture products for many other companies? It doesn't matter because, at the end of the article: "This is an edited extract from The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant, published by Bantam Press (£16.99). To order a copy for £14.44 go to bookshop.theguardian.com"
They recently announced they are going to build a huge $10Billion plant in Wisconsin to build LCD screens. (likely related to their Sharp acquisition)