Foxconn, which produces electronics and computer components for Apple, Dell, Hewlett- Packard and other global companies, has been struggling this year to explain a string of suicides among young workers at its huge complexes in the city of Shenzhen, where the company employs about 420,000 workers.
A spokesman for Foxconn, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry of Taiwan, could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and the Shenzhen police did not return phone calls. But Xinhua, China's official news agency, said the Shenzhen police had reported that a young man they identified as Li Hai had apparently jumped to his death at 6:20 a.m. Tuesday at Foxconn.
Wang Tongxin, vice chairman of the general labor union in Shenzhen, a government- controlled organization, said the Shenzhen police had alerted his organization to the death Tuesday.
“We have already sent an investigation team to the factory, and our city government is paying a lot of attention to this," Mr. Wang said by telephone.
Nine Foxconn employees have committed suicide since late January in Shenzhen, according to the police, and two others attempted suicide but survived with serious injuries. While the suicide rate at Foxconn is still below estimates of the national rate of about 14 per 100,000 people in China, according to the World Health Organization, Foxconn executives say the figures are significantly higher than in previous years.
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String of Suicides Continues at Electronics Supplier in China
A 19-year-old employee was found dead Tuesday morning in what appears to have been the ninth suicide this year at a factory in southern China operated by Foxconn Technology, one of the world's largest contract electronics manufacturers, according to China's state-run news media.
