Apple supplier Foxconn will pay new hires $1,400 to quit immediately as China’s ‘iPhone city’ enters COVID lockdown - Fortune

In a unit notice, Foxconn said it would connection newly-hired employees astatine its works successful Zhengzhou an 8,000 yuan ($1,100) bonus to resign instantly and an further 2,000 yuan ($300) if they boarded a autobus backmost to their hometown, reports the South China Morning Post. The bonus is much than a month’s wages for Foxconn workers, according to Bloomberg. 

“Some employees are inactive acrophobic astir the coronavirus and anticipation to discontinue and instrumentality home,” Foxconn wrote successful its notice, saying it “deeply understands the concerns” of its workers. 

Foxconn, which is officially known arsenic Hon Hai Precision Industry, did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

The announcement came hours aft reports of violent protests successful Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, which employs arsenic galore arsenic 300,000 people. Workers near their dormitories aboriginal connected Wednesday morning, aggravated astir unpaid wages and acrophobic astir the dispersed of COVID. Workers clashed with information personnel, and anti-riot constabulary had to reconstruct order. 

Foxconn confirmed protests took spot in a statement connected Wednesday and denied that COVID-positive workers were staying successful its dormitories.

COVID lockdowns

Zhengzhou officials announced connected Wednesday that the city’s municipality areas would beryllium sent into lockdown from Friday done Nov. 29. The city—sometimes called “iPhone City” owed to its cardinal presumption successful Apple’s proviso chain—reported astir 1,000 cases connected Wednesday.

Foxconn enacted COVID controls successful precocious October, including forcing workers to devour successful their dormitories, to quell a increasing outbreak. Soon aft Foxconn imposed these controls, videos emerged connected Chinese societal media of workers fleeing the factory, jumping fences and hitching rides connected passing vehicles.

The idiosyncratic exodus pushed Foxconn to crook to the authorities for help. Workers who fled Foxconn’s mill told the South China Morning Post that section colony officials had called them connected behalf of the company, encouraging them to instrumentality to work. 

Apple warned earlier this month that iPhone accumulation would beryllium lower-than-expected going into the vacation play owed to disruption successful its factories. State media reported that Foxconn would request arsenic galore arsenic 100,000 caller workers to reconstruct afloat operations.

China is battling COVID outbreaks crossed the state arsenic cases emergence to their highest constituent this year, exceeding the erstwhile record acceptable successful April during Shanghai’s punishing two-month lockdown. The state reported 29,754 cases connected Wednesday. 

The wide outbreaks are a caller trial of China’s “COVID-zero” policy, which uses wide investigating and lockdowns to wholly suppress outbreaks. These pugnacious measures are blamed for dragging down China’s economy, with some retail income and mill enactment falling implicit the past month. Nomura economists estimation that areas liable for one-fifth of China’s GDP are now nether immoderate form of lockdown.