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Agent: Hourly wages change every day, so you need to start working early

Author/IT Times reporter Shen Yibin

Edited by Qian Lifu and Sun Yan

One month after the IT Times reporter visited Luxshare Precision Kunshan Park, in mid-August, Luxshare Precision Kunshan Park once again raised its entry bonus by 200 yuan to 5,500 yuan. This also means that the new iPhone 16 series has entered the mass production sprint stage.

Recently, Foxconn, the largest OEM for Apple, also started to increase wages to recruit workers. Some media reported that Foxconn Zhengzhou Science and Technology Park recruited 50,000 people in two weeks. In this regard, the reporter of IT Times interviewed the recruitment agencies and directly recruited employees of Foxconn parks in Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou and other places and learned that the hourly wage of Foxconn Zhengzhou Park has risen to 25.5 yuan/hour, and the hourly wage of Foxconn Hangzhou Park has reached 28 yuan/hour. Some directly recruited employees said that there are as many as hundreds of people applying for the job every day, first through online registration, and then on-site interviews.

The hot recruitment phenomenon of domestic foundries is a reflection of Apple's return of production capacity. Last year, the iPhone 15 assembled in India had a low yield, "forcing" Cook to come to China to readjust the supply chain. Today, Foxconn, Luxshare Precision, BYD and others have joined the production of the new iPhone 16 series. In the view of Zhang Guobin, CEO of Electronic Innovation Network, China is still the most suitable country in the world for the development of manufacturing.

"Now is the time when the hourly wage is the highest, and there are internal referral resources, so I came in." Rongrong (pseudonym) in Chengdu told the IT Times reporter that she just graduated this year and spent a lot of money on traveling some time ago, so she chose to join the factory now.

The wage model of Foxconn's Chengdu Park business department is "post salary + hourly subsidy", where the post salary is 2,300 to 2,600 yuan, and the hourly subsidy began to rise to 9 yuan per hour in August. The workers work six days a week and rest one day, and need to work 10 to 12 hours a day.

Rongrong did some calculations for the reporter. Working 26 days a month, 10 hours a day, is 2,340 yuan, plus the basic salary of about 5,000 yuan, there are also 1.5 times the overtime pay, 8 yuan/night night shift allowance, about 1,000 yuan per month for joining the company, and high temperature subsidies.6500~7000 yuan per month。

Hourly workers like Rongrong are spread across Foxconn campuses across the country. Although the hourly wages vary in different cities, without exception, they have all been rising recently.

Among Foxconn's many parks, Zhengzhou Park has the largest scale and the largest number of employees. Starting in 2023, the number of employees will stabilize at around 200,000. According to media reports, in 2023, the output value of Foxconn Zhengzhou Park hit a new high, achieving "twelve consecutive increases", helping Zhengzhou Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone's foreign trade import and export scale to leap to the first place in the country.

In order to meet Apple's mass production needs, Foxconn Zhengzhou Park posted a recruitment slogan "The highest price of the year" on its official recruitment public account. The reporter learned from Li Hui (pseudonym), an agent at Foxconn Zhengzhou Park, that since August, overtime has increased and working 10 hours a day has become the norm. In terms of wages, the Zhengzhou Park adopts a rebate model and an hourly model. Under the rebate model, employees can receive a maximum rebate of 7,500 yuan after working for 90 days, and the maximum hourly wage under the hourly model is 25.5 yuan/hour. "Policies change every day, so you should join during the peak season when prices are high."Li Hui said.

However, the hourly wage at the Zhengzhou campus is not the highest. Ayuan (pseudonym), a direct recruit at Foxconn's Hangzhou campus, told reporters:The highest hourly wage for hourly workers in the Hangzhou industrial park has reached 28 yuan/hour, and there is still room for growth. The base salary for regular workers is also higher than that of other industrial parks, reaching 2,690 yuan. The highest salary for hourly workers is 7,500 yuan/month, and the highest salary for regular workers is 7,200 yuan/month. Driven by the high salary, hundreds of people go for interviews every day.A Yuan also said that in the current production of iPhone 16, new employees will not be assigned to other product lines, but positions such as quality inspection, packaging, and assembly will be randomly assigned.

In 2020, Foxconn Chairman Liu Yangwei revealed at the shareholders' meeting that the company would focus its investment on India. Apple also intends to increase its supply chain investment in countries such as India and Vietnam, and transfer some production lines in an effort to reduce its dependence on a single market.

During the production of iPhone 15, Bloomberg also reported that Foxconn's factories in India almost simultaneously supplied iPhone 15 series phones to the global market. The Indian government and industry are full of expectations for this, and even publicly announced that they will increase output value fivefold in the next five years, striving to become one of Apple's important production bases.

At present, it seems that Apple’s production line transfer process is not smooth.After the iPhone 15 series was launched, there were reports that only about 50% of Apple mobile phone components coming out of the Indian production line were of qualified quality, and there were problems such as excessive E. coli, which was far below Apple's "zero defect" standard.Some video bloggers also posted iPhone 15 disassembly videos on social platforms, revealing problems such as obvious fingerprints on the motherboard and dust in the camera.

Zhang Guobin told the IT Times reporter that from the perspective of advantages, India, with its large population, has huge market potential and consumer demand, and cheap labor can help Apple reduce production costs. The demographic dividend is also the reason why Apple chose India. However, insufficient infrastructure, immature production lines, poor sanitary conditions, high temperature and power outages, and other issues will affect Apple's mobile phone production capacity, quality, and even brand reputation. "The return of iPhone 16 orders is a choice Apple has to make."

Public reports show that more than 95% of Apple's products are still manufactured and assembled in China. For Apple, Zhang Guobin believes that although China's labor costs are higher than those in Southeast Asian countries, with a more complete industrial chain, a better business environment, and more complete infrastructure, Apple's quality and reputation can return to "zero defects". China is still the most suitable country in the world for the development of manufacturing.

For the domestic industrial chain, the return is naturally good news. In addition to Foxconn and Luxshare Precision, BYD has also become Apple's OEM. The financial report shows that in 2023, BYD's mobile phone components, assembly and other products achieved revenue of 118.577 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20%, accounting for 19.69% of the total revenue.

However, Zhang Xiaorong, director of the Deep Technology Research Institute, said in an interview with the media that Apple's return to China may exacerbate trade disputes and bring certain risks to supply chain security. In addition, the local supply chain also needs to deal with challenges such as environmental protection and rising labor costs.

BYD, which is thriving in the new energy field, has taken over Apple's OEM business, while Foxconn, which has been Apple's OEM, is preparing to enter the new energy vehicle field.

On July 22, the Henan Provincial Government and Foxconn signed a strategic cooperation agreement to accelerate the promotion of new business projects. On the one hand, the agreement focuses on the industrialization of Foxconn's "3+3" strategy, namely the three emerging industries of "electric vehicles, digital health, and robots" and the three new technology fields of "artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and new generation mobile communications"; on the other hand, the Henan Provincial Government supports Foxconn's investment in the construction of a new business headquarters building in Zhengzhou.

According to media reports, at the end of July this year, Foxconn Chairman Liu Yangwei stayed in Zhengzhou for 4 days, focusing on visiting the Zhengzhou International Land Port which is related to Foxconn's automotive industry.

In fact, as early as 2021, Foxconn had already started to plan for new energy vehicles. In 2021, Foxconn released three electric vehicles developed in cooperation with Yulon, named Model C, Model E and Model T, with vehicle categories of SUV, sedan and bus respectively. In 2022, Foxconn launched two more models, the crossover SUV Model B and the pickup electric vehicle Model V.

However, this does not mean that "Foxconn brand”The car is going to be launched. In fact, Foxconn is selling its own MIH pure electric platform and a complete set of solutions from design and development to production to car companies. According to the plan previously announced by Liu Yangwei, from 2025 to 2027, Foxconn will supply parts or provide services for 10% of the world's electric vehicles.

Layout/ Ji Jiaying

Image/IT Times Foxconn Interviewee Oriental IC

Source: IT Times WeChat ID: vittimes