Suicides in Foxconn

‘In 20 years, there will be only 2 companies: Foxconn will make everything and Wal-Mart will sell them.’ That may be a joke. But it does give an indication of how huge Foxconn is.

Foxconn was founded by Terry Gou in 1974. Today it is a colossal contract manufacturer of electronics employing over 800,000 people in more than 20 factories across China. Its revenue is about $55 billion in 2010. It does business with renowned companies like IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Apple.

Its factory in Longhua, Shenzhen has a workforce of 300,000 and occupies an area of 2.1 sq. km. It is a self-contained campus with all the basic facilities like hospital, restaurants, banks, Olympic-sized swimming pool, grocery store, internet cafe and a bookstore.

A spate of suicides brought the firm to the limelight. A lot is said about stress being the cause of the suicides – the workers do long hours under inhospitable conditions and poor living conditions in the dormitories. However, there may be a twist to this. It is suspected that some of them may have done it for money. The average worker earns about 2000 Yuan per month. But, the company pays 100,000 Yuan compensation to the family of anyone dying on site. To the unstable 20 year-old, the thought of that much money going to their parents could be attractive.