Abstract: Foxconn lunched the second recruitment in two months and unusually offered up to RMB10,000 bonus for each new hire in the off season.
BEIJING, January 7 (TMTPOST) — Apple Inc’s largest iPhone production base run by Foxconn in Zhengzhou, the manufacturing hub and capital of central China’s Henan province, is urgently launching recruitment again, signaling high demand for the latest iPhone lineup.
In order to meet the manufacturing needs, Foxconn’s iPhone factory in Zhengzhou announced to hire workers earlier this week. As rewards to attract more candidates, each new hired regular worker will have a one-time bonus of RMB8,500 (US$1338.8) after working till the end of the peak season, and each hired hourly worker can receive a bonus of RMB10,000 (US$1575) when his or she stays on the job for 90 days and the attendance record has no less than 55 work days, according to the Taiwan-based Apple’s largest suppliers.
Source: Visual China
This is the second mass recruitment for the Zhengzhou manufacturing site in just two months. In December, Foxconn’s iDPBG Business Group located in Zhengzhou, a division responsible for manufacturing the iPhone, started recruitment for the local factory, offering a bonus of RMB500 for each employee referral and a signing bonus ranging from RMB8,500 to RMB9,500 for each new hire.
The hire blizzard and generous bonus is unusual for Foxconn since the beginning of a year is typically off season for mobile phone makers. According to the South China Morning Post, the company has previously offered RMB5,000-5,500 bonuses from 2020 until May, 2021, both of which were also given during the peak season.
The Zhengzhou factory, which is said to make about half of iPhone output in the world, now houses more than 90 assembly lines with 350,000 workers and produces 500,000 smartphones per day. Its recent recruitment mainly resulted from the strong demand for iPhone 13 series during the Chinese Lunar New Year starting from February 1 as well as the serious labor shortage due to the one-week holiday, according to analysis from the media outlets in mainland China. And the hiring can also be seemed as a precaution when the Henan provincial government recently imposed COVID restrictions after the case surged surprisingly.
All in all, one cannot deny iPhone 13’s hot demand as a fundamental force that led to Foxconn’s hire rush. In October, 2021, Apple became the largest smartphone OEM in China for the first time since December 2015, according to Counterpoint Research. Driven by the iPhone 13 series, Apple owner had a 46% month-over-month (MoM) growth in sales, the highest among all major OEMs in the country, while the nation-wide headline MoM growth that month was just 2%, the market research firm’s monthly report showed.
