Last year there were numerous reports claiming that employees of Foxconn factories in China are committing suicide due to very low wages and poor working conditions. Then Apple opened an investigation in the factories of the largest manufacturer of iDevices for the company from Cupertino and some of the problems were solved. Although the number of suicides decreased, Foxconn was left with a big image problem that now inted to correct it by purchasing 1 million industrial robots that will replace the company's factory workforce in China.
Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn will replace some of its workers with 1 million robots in three years to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency, said Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the company, late Friday.
The robots will be used to do simple and routine work such as spraying, welding and assembling which are now mainly conducted by workers, said Gou at a workers' dance party Friday night.
Foxconn has 1.2 million employees and 10.000 robots at the moment, but in 3 years the proportions will change radically and 1 million industrial robots will work in factories while 1 million employees will lose their jobs. The largest Foxconn factories are in China, where the most suicides have also taken place, but the adoption of the robotic workforce will reduce part of the expenses and will definitively solve the problems that the company's management currently has with the employees.
Removing the human factor from the process of assembling an iDevice should result in better quality products, but we will only see the first terminals assembled by robots from Foxconn next year.
