Foxconn not such a gloomy place, almost half a million more to join

The name Foxconn might not be the first you would jot down as a ‘dream employer', but it seems that many people are jumping at the chance to work for them with 400,000 more jobs marked down within the next year.

In recent months 12 people of the Foxconn workforce have killed themselves, deciding that the afterlife was a better spot than the dank Chinese manufacturing factories. Parent company Hon Hai Precision are the worlds largest makers of consumer electronics, employing around 1 million people already. They produce goods for many well known western names, such as everyone's favourite fruit company Apple.

The company has issued a statement today to the press saying that it will hire between 300,000 and 400,000 people over the next 12 months expanding their workforce to new levels. Foxconn have been under intense scrutiny since suicide problems emerged and we reported earlier that they held a ‘party' event at their HQ to celebrate their workforce and changing mindset. Salaries are rising and working conditions are improving, but it is a shame that 12 people had to die to make this happen.

Foxconn still deny the suicides were work related and that they mistreated their workforce. It did admit however that their staff work longer hours than the maximum allowed by Chinese law, this is going to change.

Foxconn really had no option but to start a media campaign to show changes, followed by this latest announcement of hiring more people to help lower working hours. They could lose huge contracts with Dell, Apple and Nokia if they didn't.

KitGuru says: A workforce of 1.3 million is formidable. They might even be able to keep up with iPad production.

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