Henan’s Local Governments Require Officials to Support Pandemic-Affected iPhone Foundry Foxconn

The Zhengzhou plant of Foxconn in Henan Province, China, was recently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and a large number of employees left the factory and returned home on foot. However, some local governments have been asked to get involved and take the lead in supporting work at Foxconn for a period ranging from 1 to 6 months. In the past two days, several officials have entered Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant to work for support, according to a report by Cailian Press on November 15.

It is also reported that some towns and villages in Henan Province have recently received the task of assisting Zhengzhou Foxconn in recruiting workers, and assigned the number of people to the towns and villages under their jurisdiction. An anonymous interviewee disclosed the situation in his jurisdiction: “At present, each village requires one.”

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On November 7, Apple issued a statement saying that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the production capacity of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant dropped sharply, and the shipments of two models of the iPhone 14 Pro series were likely to be lower than expected. Many senior analysts in the mobile phone industry told the media that with Foxconn’s risk awareness and Apple’s supply chain management ability, the decline in Zhengzhou production capacity will indeed affect Apple’s sales, but will not be too heavy. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, about 10% of iPhone production capacity in the world will be affected.

Coinciding with the peak season production, in order to retain workers, from October to now, the Foxconn Zhengzhou plant has announced three “Attendance Incentive Plans”. On October 19, the work attendance subsidy increased from 50 yuan/day to 100 yuan/day. In October 30, the subsidy was raised to 200 yuan/day, and in the latest announcement, the attendance allowance was raised to 400 yuan/day.

According to The Paper, under the coordination of the local government, the first batch of new employees from cities like Xinxiang, Zhumadian, Xinyang and Luohe in Henan Province arrived at Foxconn Zhengzhou factory on November 13. These employees were transported in a closed loop. After arriving in Zhengzhou from other places, they will undergo quarantine for three days. After that, the local government will send special buses to send them directly to Foxconn Zhengzhou plant.

The new employees recruited this time are employed in the mode of hourly workers, and the wage is calculated according to the hourly wage of 30 yuan from the start of employment date. After working for 30 days, workers will get an additional allowance of 3,000 yuan. For employees who previously left their jobs and returned home, they will be given a one-time care subsidy of 500 yuan when they re-join the company. Some recruitment center staff said that there are many applicants at present, and the number of people applying for the project has reached more than 30,000.