The world's largest iPhone factory, operated by Foxconn Technology Group in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is to hire at least 20,000 workers prior to the release of new Apple products and as demand for iPhones and iPads remains robust in China and overseas. A recruiting manager from the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou told the Global Times that the company is offering CNY7,000 to CNY8,000 in bonuses to workers who introduce new candidates for hiring after the Spring Festival. The demand for new labor has always been strong after the holidays as plants ramp up efforts to complete orders, said the manager who asked to remain anonymous. “Last year, the referral bonus was up to CNY10,000,” he noted. Currently, the labor shortage is quite large and about 20,000 workers are needed on a weekly basis, he said. According to Foxconn's recruitment website, plants in Langfang in Hebei, Shenzhen in Guangdong and Taiyuan in Shanxi are all stepping up recruitment efforts.
The week-long Spring Festival holidays meant that many factories in China took a break, but not Foxconn's plant in Zhengzhou. Nearly 100,000 workers stayed put due to Covid-19 flare-ups at the start of 2022, according to Foxconn. In addition to salary and overtime pay, workers who stayed in the factory could get a maximum of CNY3,000 as an extra bonus during the Spring Festival holidays. According to Canalys, smartphone shipments by Apple hit 21.5 million in China in the fourth quarter of 2021 – the first time for Apple to retake the top spot in the Chinese market since 2015. “Apple's supply chain is starting to recover, but it was still forced to cut production in the fourth quarter amid shortages of key components and could not make enough iPhones to meet demand,” Canalys Analyst Sanyam Chaurasia said. In addition to iPhones, iPad supply is also tight. There were no inventories of the iPad mini and iPad Pro on JD.com, a major Chinese e-commerce platform. TrendForce told the Global Times it expected that Apple will produce about 243 million iPhones in 2022, up 5.4% compared with 2021.
