Foxconn admits schoolchildren in China factory worked overnight to build Amazon’s Alexa devices, blaming ‘lax oversight’ by local management
- Newspaper investigation showed hundreds of teenagers did overtime as ‘part of a controversial and often illegal attempt to meet production targets’
- Taiwanese tech giant says it has doubled monitoring of student internship programme with partner schools
Taiwan’s tech giant Foxconn admitted on Friday that school interns had worked overtime and night shifts at a factory in China, blaming “lax oversight” by local management.
The statement by Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, which assembles products for Apple and other international brands, came after a newspaper investigation found hundreds of schoolchildren aged between 16 and 18 have been drafted to make Amazon’s Alexa devices.
Britain’s The Guardian reported that teenagers from schools around the central southern city of Hengyang were asked to work nights and overtime as “part of a controversial and often illegal attempt to meet production targets”.
Foxconn said in a statement that it has doubled the monitoring of its internship programme with its partner schools “to ensure that, under no circumstances, will interns (be) allowed to work overtime or nights”.
“There have been instances in the past where lax oversight on the part of the local management team has allowed this to happen … this is not acceptable and we have taken immediate steps to ensure it will not be repeated.”
