Foxconn tells recruiters in India: Nix marital status in iPhone job vacancies
Apple supplier Foxconn has ordered the recruiting agents who help recruit iPhone technicians in India to remove age, gender and marriage criteria and the manufacturer’s name from job postings, according to three people familiar with the matter who reviewed nearly a dozen advertisements by Reuters.
The moves follow a Reuters investigation published on June 25 that found Foxconn excluded married women from jobs at its main iPhone assembly plant in India, although the practice was relaxed during periods of high production.
Foxconn, which employs thousands of women at its iPhone factory in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, is outsourcing the recruitment of assembly line workers to outside suppliers. These agents scout and screen candidates, who are ultimately interviewed and selected by Foxconn.
For the June story, Reuters reviewed job advertisements posted by Foxconn’s Indian staffing agencies between January 2023 and May 2024, which stated that only unmarried women of a certain age were eligible for smartphone assembly positions, which violated the anti-discrimination policies of Apple and Foxconn.
Days after the story was published, Foxconn HR managers instructed many of its Indian suppliers to standardize recruitment materials in accordance with templates provided by the company, two of the agency’s three sources told Reuters. They also told the sellers not to talk to the media, these people said.
At a meeting in late June, Foxconn HR managers cited media reports about the company’s hiring practices and “warned us not to use Foxconn’s name in advertising in the future, and told us that our contracts would be ended if we did,” one officer said.
“The instructions for advertisements were: do not mention the condition of being unmarried, also do not mention age, nor male or female,” said the person, who like the other sources spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of backlash from Foxconn.
Foxconn did not respond to questions from Reuters about its guidelines to recruiters, nor whether it had ended restrictions on the employment of married women for iPhone assembly roles. Apple declined to comment on similar questions. Both companies have previously said Foxconn hires married women in India.
Reuters could not independently determine whether Foxconn had started hiring larger numbers of married women for the roles in question. But recent changes to ad content matched recruiters’ accounts.
A new Foxconn template ad, reviewed by Reuters, described smartphone assembly positions but made no mention of Foxconn, nor age, gender or marriage criteria. It listed the benefits: “Air-conditioned workshop, free transportation, canteen, free hostel” and a monthly salary of 14,974 rupees, or about $177.
In October, Reuters visited Sriperumbudur and reviewed nine Foxconn supplier advertisements, some in the Tamil language, posted on walls and distributed on WhatsApp. The text matched the template provided to the suppliers.
Although the ads did not identify the employer, two of the three supplier sources said they were for smartphone assembly positions at Foxconn.
“Foxconn gives us the ads to run for hiring. We only use them,” an executive at staffing agency Prodle told Reuters.
Reuters visited the offices of 12 Foxconn suppliers, eight of which declined to discuss their practices.
One supplier, Groveman Global, had advertised for unmarried women aged 18 to 32 for mobile manufacturing jobs in 2023. This language was missing from three new Groveman ads that Reuters reviewed last month.
A representative at Groveman’s office declined to comment on the changes.
Apple has positioned India as an alternative manufacturing base to China amid tensions between Beijing and Washington. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government believes Foxconn’s iPhone factory and Apple’s broader supply chain in India are helping the country move up the economic value chain.
Following the earlier Reuters story, Modi’s government ordered a federal and state investigation into hiring practices at the Foxconn factory.
Labor officials visited the factory in July and interviewed company executives, but neither the Modi government nor state officials in Tamil Nadu made the findings public. The state government has rejected a Reuters request for a copy of the investigation report under India’s Right to Information Act, citing confidentiality.
Federal and state officials did not respond to questions from Reuters about the outcome of their investigation into Foxconn.
Dilip Cherian, a communications consultant and co-founder of Indian PR agency Perfect Relations, said media scrutiny of Foxconn’s employment practices had necessitated changes to job postings because of the reputational impact on the company and its customer, Apple.
Still, it remained to be seen “whether this move represents a real change of heart or just a cosmetic and appropriate legal response to being summoned,” added Cherian, who told Reuters he is not working with Apple or Foxconn . .
During a visit to India in August, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said married women “contribute greatly to the efforts of what we are doing here.”
He also met with Modi, who said on X at the time that the pair discussed the Taiwan-headquartered company’s investment plans in India.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
