iPhone maker boosts pay in China

Beijing, Nov 2 (Agency) Apple supplier Foxconn says it has quadrupled daily bonuses at a giant iPhone plant in China after a breakout by workers during a Covid lockdown. The firm says bonuses for assembly line workers at its manufacturing plant in Zhengzhou in central China will be raised to 400 yuan ($54.90) a day, BBC reported. At the weekend a video showed people jumping a fence outside the plant. Chinese people and businesses are continuing to grapple with President Xi Jinping’s rigid zero-Covid policy.

On the WeChat social media platform, Foxconn also said that people who worked for more than 25 days a month at the world’s largest iPhone factory would be awarded a maximum bonus of 5,000 yuan, up from 1,500 yuan, the BBC reported. It added that those who put in their “full effort” in November — without taking any leave — could be paid a total bonus of more than 15,000 yuan for the month. The firm said the bonuses were part of an effort to “gradually resume orderly production” and “thank our fellow employees’ persistence”. The lockdown comes at a critical period for Foxconn — which is now making the new iPhone 14 for Apple, the report said. Taiwanese firm Foxconn, a major supplier to US-based Apple, has hundreds of thousands of workers at its Zhengzhou complex.