Terry Gou of Foxconn has spoken out in defense of his company, insisting that the raft of over a dozen suicides in 2010 cannot be blamed on poor working conditions…or at least 95% of them, anyway. Foxconn has broken silence on it rather questionable employee welfare and safety record and…unsurprisingly…has denied any wrongdoing. Four years […]
Terry Gou of Foxconn has spoken out in defense of his company, insisting that the raft of over a dozen suicides in 2010 cannot be blamed on poor working conditions…or at least 95% of them, anyway.
Foxconn has broken silence on it rather questionable employee welfare and safety record and…unsurprisingly…has denied any wrongdoing.
Four years ago, Apple’s primary iPhone and iPad assembly partner hit the headlines all over the world after a string of employee suicides rocked the industry to its core. Foxconn had previously been accused of enforcing inhumane working conditions and treating its employees like animals, though none had expected things to get as bad as they apparently did.
The finger of blame was of course pointed squarely at CEO Terry Gou, though Apple also faced questions as to how it could possibly turn a blind eye to what was going on.
This week however, Mr. Gou has gone on-record to insist that as far as he is concerned, the raft of suicides four years ago were nothing to do with him, his company or Foxconn’s working conditions. He did however admit that it’s possible for dull and repetitive work to contribute to a person’s poor mental wellbeing, but stated outright that at least 90% of the Foxconn employee suicides happened as a result of family problems or issues with personal relationships.
Going a little deeper into his theory, Mr. Gou said that a large proportion of Foxconn’s employee-base is comprised of young singles under the age of 25 who live and work a long way from home. As such, he theorized that relationship problems and family issues further intensified by not having any close friends or compatriots to talk to could have led to many of the suicides.
Of course, critics will and in some cases are already arguing that Gou’s explanation still doesn’t paint a particularly positive picture of a factory in which vast swathes of the workforce are doing their daily duties while suffering from crippling depression, loneliness and in some cases serious mental health problems. According to the CEO however, the working conditions at Foxconn has always been a cut above national averages in China – he even insists his firm was in the top five percentile at the time of the suicides in 2010.
