Workforce: Foxconn to replace 500,000 workers by 1,000,000 robots over the next 3 years
Published: November 8, 2011Posted in: Business, News, Technology
Workforce: Foxconn to replace 500,000 workers by 1,000,000 robots over the next 3 years
The parent’s company of Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Chairman Terry Gou, confirmed Saturday the company’s determination to build an intelligent robotics and automation equipment manufacturing hub in the Central Taiwan Science Park. Hon Hai will build an “intelligent robotics kingdom” in the park in the coming few years. The project is expected to generate an estimated $4 billion in production value in the next three to five years and create about 2,000 jobs. According to AFP, “Foxconn, hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants, plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years.Foxconn — the world’s largest maker of computer components, which assembles products for Apple, Sony and Nokia — plans to use one million robots to do “simple” work, China Business News quoted Gou as saying in August.At least 14 workers have died in apparent suicides since last year, most of them in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Activists blamed the deaths on tough working conditions and have called for better treatment of staff.”