Foxconn axes 50,000 seasonal jobs amid Apple iPhone slowdown

“Apple’s iPhone suppliers are cutting tens of thousands of seasonal jobs months earlier than normal as the industry suffers one of its most severe downturns in a decade,” Coco Liu, Lauly Li, and Cheng Ting-Fang report for Nikkei Asian Review.
“Around 50,000 contract workers have been let go since October at Foxconn Technology Group’s most important iPhone factory at Zhengzhou, in China’s Henan Province, according to an industry source familiar with the situation,” Liu, Li, and Ting-Fang report. “Normally, the contracts of these workers would be renewed every month from August until mid- to late January, when the workforce is traditionally scaled back for the slow iPhone production season.”
“The scale of the cuts is not necessarily deeper than previous years, it is simply significantly earlier, industry sources said,” Liu, Li, and Ting-Fang report. “Pegatron, Apple’s second-biggest iPhone assembler, began canceling monthly labor contracts in November. A source close to the company said its normal practice was to reduce the 200,000-strong head count by tens of thousands every month until reaching about 100,000 — the minimum required for daily operation, according to one source familiar with the situation. ‘And for [2018], it just happened sooner than in the past because of poor demand.'”
“Foxconn counts Apple as its top customer but the company also supplies to HP, Dell, Amazon.com, Huawei Technologies, Xiaomi, and many other global tech brands,” Liu, Li, and Ting-Fang report. “The number of contractors it uses can vary significantly year to year due to demand and the adoption of automation in factories, industry sources said.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Seems logical to cut employees who do nothing (unless you’re the government, of course).