Foxconn Mysteriously Tells Chinese Workers To Quit India and Return To China

Apple's expansion in India has hit a snag as Foxconn has sent over 300 Chinese workers back to China, potentially reducing production efficiency just as mass manufacturing of the iPhone 17 begins. AppleInsider reports: It's not known why Foxconn has done this, nor is it clear whether workers have been laid off or redeployed to the company's facilities in China. The move, though, does follow Beijing officials reportedly working to prevent firms moving away from China. Those officials are said to have been verbally encouraging China's local governments and regulatory bodies to curb exports of equipment or technologies to India and Southeast Asia.

Overall, China has been making it harder for skilled labor to leave the country. It's not clear how any changes have specifically affected Chinese workers who had already left.What is clear is that Foxconn has used many experienced Chinese engineers as it attempts to rapidly expand in India. It's said, too, that Chinese managers have been vital in training Foxconn staff in India. Since that training has been ongoing for some years, and since at least most of Foxconn's production lines have been set up, it's said that there will not be an impact on the quality of manufacturing. But one source said the changes will impact efficiency on the production line.

Apple should just cut foxconn out!

[Joe_Dragon]

Apple should just cut foxconn out!

Re:Apple should just cut foxconn out!

[viperidaenz]

They don't have anyone else to build their products.

Re: Send those coolies back...

[sonamchauhan]

How quaint. But still a foolish attitude, no matter the century you cosplay from.

Re: Apple should just cut foxconn out!

[tiananmen tank man]

Tim should ask Donald for some advice. The genius has 50% tariff on steel and aluminium from Canada, and even with that, couldn't save the Cleveland cliffs steel plant in Pennsylvania. 5 D chess right there, length, width, height, time, the 5th d is for Donald.

Re: Apple should just cut foxconn out!

[ArchieBunker]

You bring up a good point. He keeps talking about the "commie mayor" possibly getting elected but taking a cut of that steel deal isn't the government seizing the means of production? Or do we call it something different?

Re:

[Gilmoure]

Rules for thee, not for me.

Re:

[williamyf]

They don't have anyone else to build their products.

Wrong, they also use pegatron, winstron and compal, but yes, foxxcon gets the lion's share of apple's bussienss.

Strange they do not have anything with celestica, as being canadian should slightly help with the geopolitics...

Re:

[ihavesaxwithcollies]

Do you not understand why they use china to begin with? If you can figure that out you will understand why trump's tariffs are doomed to fail and will destroy the american economy.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Three things that have nothing to do with tariffs. Like serious petrol prices? It's like you haven't paid attention at all to what was going on in the middle east have you, or the fact that oil and petrol fell when the courts blocked the first round of tariffs - like really driving the opposite point of the one you were trying to make.

Re: Apple should just cut foxconn out!

[dbialac]

Thank you W and Obama for giving us a service oriented economy instead of manufacturing this kind of stuff. Thank you to Apple for sending jobs overseas. Thank you to Wall Street for making a few more dollars while the middle and working class struggle.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Thank you W and Obama for giving us a service oriented economy instead of manufacturing this kind of stuff. Thank you to Apple for sending jobs overseas. Thank you to Wall Street for making a few more dollars while the middle and working class struggle.

The service oriented economy is the evolution of the manufacturing economy.

There are half a million manufacturing jobs right now in the US that are waiting to be filled. No one is filling them. Trump bringing back manufacturing isn't going to help that.

You ca

Re:

[sabbede]

Here's the problem - Services don't win wars, manufacturing does.

Re: Apple should just cut foxconn out!

[ihavesaxwithcollies]

Nice, Stealthy both sides. Again, the ceo of mattel was asked if trumps tariffs were going to bring back manufacturing jobs to the us and he bluntly replied, "We donâ(TM)t see that happening". Please explain to us idiots what any other president in the last 25 years could do.

I have a bad feeling about this.

[MacMann]

There's that repeated line from the Star Wars franchise, "I have a bad feeling about this." This is a line used before something bad happens to the heroes.

Pulling people out of a foreign nation is often a prelude to an attack. Look to what the USA did in the lead up to the bombings in Iran. There was a call to get American citizens out. That revealed something was up, but still left open the questions of precisely when, where, and how something would happen.

There's been speculations on when China might

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

> China is not in a good place right now. They need raw materials, energy, people, food, and likely more.

Um, no. China is in a good place (not great).

China does not need people. Granted, they need young people, like most industrialized nations which is what I assume you meant. Either wait out the demographic collapse of other nations or act now. It's not clear what the result will be, but "need" is not correct.

The Yuan is becoming the refuge for a large amount of international debt, largely because the C

Re:

[test321]

China is not in a good place right now. They need [...] people,

Chinese population has peaked. Their population is expected to decrease by half until 2100. Their opportunity window to use young men for the army will be closing, so the right decision for them would be to start any war ASAP.

Sources:
* https://population.un.org/wpp/... [un.org]
* https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]

Foxconn is Taiwanese

[mkwan]

Foxconn (Hon Hai) is a Taiwanese firm. It has a lot of factories in China, but it isn't Chinese.
I'm sure they could send experienced Taiwanese engineers to the Indian factories to replace the departing Chinese.

Re:Foxconn is Taiwanese

[Zocalo]

More likely they're afraid of the wheel turning again. This is how the process starts; a new factory gets spun up to take advantage of cheaper labour in another country. That leads to a general increase in skills in that country and, before you know it, a dozen copycat faciliites have been spun up based on your techniques and you've been cut out of the market.

Right now, both China and Taiwan, as well as several other countries in SE Asia, are seeing India's massive source of potential cheap labour as an existential threat to a core part of their economies, and while they are, in many cases, at least someone allied politically with each other, they're all still very much trying to stamp on the fingers on the rungs of the ladder just below them.

Re:

[sabbede]

I still don't understand why a Taiwanese company would want to do business in China. That's like an Israeli company doing business in Iran. "Let's help the mainland make money and material they can use to invade us", doesn't make sense to me.

Re:

[laughingskeptic]

Foxconn has at least 5X more factories and Chinese employees than it has Taiwanese factories and employees. The Chinese employees in India are primarily more senior employees training up Indian employees. They may not be able to easily divert that many senior employees from the smaller Taiwanese cohort. Apple has foolishly allowed the expertise to manufacture their phones to be developed entirely external to the their company. Apple's market cap is 40X Foxconn's yet Apple can't manufacture anything in r

And so it begins...

[Fons_de_spons]

China fearing braindrain... China facing loss of production to India...
I guess that is how it started here.

Backdoors in Global Marketplace

[John.Banister]

India should try hiring Chinese engineers and buying Chinese technology from belt and road projects where the local governments have been required to accept them. I'm sure that the Chinese government will prevent it, but when they do, it will demonstrate clearly that the Chinese nationals doing the construction are not just construction workers, but rather are an arm of the Chinese government. It should be win-win for India. They either get the brains and tech or they get the PR from the Chinese government