As a result, the megafactory’s busiest season starts around September or October, when Apple releases its new iPhone models, and continues through the end-of-year holiday season until the Lunar New Year, which falls in January or February.Īs global demand for new phones surges, Foxconn offers pay and bonuses that are much higher than those of other blue-collar jobs to make sure its assembly lines can run at full speed.

Apple relies on just-in-time manufacturing, meaning it doesn’t build up a large inventory of products but has iPhones made as consumers order them. Nicknamed “iPhone City,” it covers an area of 5.6 square kilometers - about one-tenth the size of Manhattan - and at full capacity employs some 200,000 workers. The pay would be worth it.įoxconn’s compound in Zhengzhou makes about half of the world’s iPhones. “Some line leaders just can’t live a day without scolding people.” He hated the humiliation and tediousness of the production line job, but he gritted his teeth.

“I feel we have no rights and dignity inside the workshops,” Hunter, who asked to be identified by his nickname, told Rest of World in a call after work one day. Behind the assembly line, supervisors - known as xianzhang, or “line leaders” - monitored workers’ progress on a computer and frequently admonished those who fell behind. If he needed to take a toilet break, he had to make up for lost time. Every day, 600 more unassembled iPhones awaited him.Īpart from a strictly timed hour-long lunch break, he spent his days inside a windowless workshop that smelled of chlorine, wearing an antistatic gown and a face mask. During a normal 10-hour shift, his target was to attach 600 cables to 600 cases, using 1,200 screws. Hunter had to complete this task once every minute. He’d then put the unfinished phone onto a conveyor belt that carried it to the next station. His task was to pick up an iPhone’s rear cover and a tiny cable that charges the battery, scan their QR codes, peel off adhesive tape backing, and join the two parts by tightening two screws. Chinese factory laborers call jobs like Hunter’s “working the screws.” Until recently, the 34-year-old worked on the iPhone 14 Pro assembly line at a Foxconn factory in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou.

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