Foxconn is a factory complex in China responsible for building consumer electronics for a number of companies, including Apple, Amazon.com, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, Sony, and Sony Ericsson. This morning, the largest contract electronics manufacturer in the world announced its China workforce now exceeds 1 million workers.
"We're still hiring as we speak," Louis Woo, a special assistant to Foxconn's CEO, told Bloomberg. "Because of the Christmas holiday, everybody is working very hard."
The factory is currently in the process of a huge recruitment drive as it rushes to build hundreds of thousands of units of various products to meet anticipated demand for the holiday 2010 season. Foxconn expects as many as 1.3 million workers to be in place by the end of 2011.
Throughout its history, Foxconn's workforce has had various problems due to sweatshop-like working conditions. These include worker abuse, safety issues, violent training, low wages, and in this past year, a spree of suicides.
A few months ago, in response to the suicides, Foxconn's management decided to increase monthly wages for factory workers to 1,200 yuan ($180.32) per month. A second raise to 2000 yuan ($300.53) was given in October to approximately 85 percent of the front-line assembly workers hired before March 31, but it's not clear exactly how many of the the total 1 million workers got a raise.