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Foxconn, contract manufacturer for some of the world’s largest electronics brands (including Apple, and Microsoft), has been the focus of global scrutiny as a result of the continuing spate of suicides at its Longhua site in Shenzhen in the Pearl River Delta.   So far this year at Longhua, there have been 12 suicide attempts.

The company’s initial reaction was to ask employees to sign letters promising not to harm themselves and to string up nets between buildings to catch jumping workers.  Both these measures are attempts to tackle the immediate problem, without investigating why people are jumping.  (The letters have since been withdrawn, as management realized that blanket assurances given under pressure rather missed the point.)  In a more proactive bid to cheer workers up, the company has sent in the clowns – in the form of  2,000 singers, dancers, and gym trainers for rest days, as well as recruiting psychiatrists and setting up help-lines.  Will this be enough to stem the tide of suicide?  Or is more wholesale change needed?

How does the Foxconn suicide rate compare with the national average?

Longhua is a gargantuan facility where 400,000 workers are fed and housed in a three-square-kilometer factory area.   10 suicides, or 2.5 per 100,000, is well below the national average of between 13 and 14.8 per 100,000 people (World Health Organization). However, the Foxconn workers are from a very specific demographic – migrants from rural areas in their early twenties and late teens.  Looking at WHO’s China suicide rates by age (although these are now 10 years out of date), the Foxconn figures are much closer to the national average, at around 3.5 per 100,000.  Interestingly, by far the highest suicide rates in China are of elderly people – the young in China are ten times less likely to kill themselves than the old.

So what then is driving the youthful workers of Foxconn to commit suicide at around the national average level for their age group?  On the face of it, they are far luckier than the vast majority of their contemporaries.  They have escaped rural poverty, they have good jobs, which offer the full protection of China’s labour laws.  They have better prospects than the vast majority of their peers and now they have an army of singers, dancers and gym trainers to keep them occupied.

Broken Dreams

A possible answer is suggested in an undercover report for Southern Weekend (translated from engadget).  A reporter, Liu Zhiyi, spent 28 days working Longhua.  He diagnosed the key problem as the bitter disappointment of young migrants as they face up to the reality that the streets of Shenzhen are not paved with gold.   Most workers come to the big city with the dream of working hard and saving enough money to start their own businesses.  They certainly find hard work –  repetitive, high-pressure jobs, with shifts starting at 4am,  but all too often they are unable to fulfil their earning aspirations.  At Foxconn, workers can earn around £90 per month for standard time.  Only with overtime can workers boost their income to around £200 per month. getting them much nearer to the earnings level they need to save and start a business.  At a factory like Foxconn, where overtime is well controlled, there are not many overtime hours to go round and so not many workers are able to meet their personal earnings aspirations.  Ironically, the more compliant the factory to China labour law and purchasers’ codes of conduct, the less the factory is able to meet workers’ earning needs.

Added to this disappointment is the sense of alienation felt by young people, a long way from home, with little chance to socialize.  Blogger Cressence argues that money is no longer the only priority for migrant Chinese – they also want a social life, which can be difficult in the factory environment.

How can a responsible factory try to overcome these problems?  We at Impactt believe that the Foxconn suicides could be a rallying call for a new approach to managing workers in China.  For too long, Chinese factories have tended to view labour as a commodity, to be kept in line through military discipline, and incentivised to work harder and longer rather than smarter and more creatively.  Workers are rewarded for the time they spend at work, rather than for the quality of their input.  It is time perhaps for factories supplying the electronics industry to borrow the management practices of some of their customers – companies like Apple and Dell have long understood the productivity and quality improvements derived from treating their people like people.  We hope that the industry will see the opportunity to transfer this knowledge, to enable Chinese factories to make the most of their human capital and to enable workers to reach their potential, rather than being cannon fodder for the production lines.

Foxconn has started by sending in the clowns (or rather singers, dancers and gym trainers) – this is an important step in acknowledging that workers are more than productive units.  We hope that Foxconn will take the time to listen to its workers and identify how the company can best meet their needs and aspirations, to stem this terrible tide, and to point to a more productive future.

I think this article hits on a few commercial and sociological points.

One point is that as China becomes(is) an industrial power the lifestyle of the workers is become more like that of the industrial countries of the west. To that extent, the people are becoming like drones and are facing the old adage of “living to work” rather than “working to live”.

I cant see that sending in clowns is going to effect the situation in the long term.