China iPhone Factory Increases Employees Bonuses Due To Covid Restrictions

After numerous employees left the site due to a Covid epidemic, the largest iPhone manufacturer in the world in central China informed its personnel on Tuesday that it would treble their incentives if they stayed.

As the final major economy to commit to a zero-Covid strategy, China continues to implement sudden lockdowns, extensive testing, and protracted quarantines in an effort to contain spreading epidemics.

A large portion of the nation now lives under an ever-changing mosaic of Covid restrictions as a result of new varieties that have taxed local authorities’ capacity to put out flare-ups before they spread.

Since the middle of October, the Zhengzhou facility of Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn has been on lockdown. According to the business, staff are being tested daily and kept in the loop.

But complaints from workers circulating on Chinese social media have alleged poor working conditions and inadequate virus protection for employees who are not infected.

Videos shared online over the weekend showed Foxconn employees fleeing the company’s campus and returning to their hometowns on foot, in a bid to avoid Covid travel restrictions.

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant said on its official WeChat account that, starting from Tuesday, employees will receive a daily bonus of 400 yuan ($55) for showing up to work — quadruple the previous subsidy of 100 yuan a day.

Staff will also receive additional bonuses if they attend work for 15 days or longer in November, reaching 15,000 yuan if they record full attendance this month.

Foxconn — which supplies iPhones to US tech firm Apple — has promised to do more to help employees and organise buses to transport workers back to their hometowns should they wish to leave, in what it has called a “protracted battle” against the virus.

Local governments in the area surrounding the city asked fleeing workers to register with authorities if they returned home and to complete several days of quarantine upon arrival.

The southern semi-autonomous territory of Macau also announced mass testing of its 700,000 population Tuesday after a handful of cases were discovered, triggering a lockdown of one of its casinos.

It is a fresh blow for the city’s struggling gambling industry, which had been poised for recovery after plans to relax travel between mainland China and the former Portuguese colony this month.

China reported more than 2,000 fresh domestic infections Tuesday for the second straight day, as curbs ramped up in response to a wave of regional outbreaks.

The southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Guangzhou also announced partial lockdowns in several districts Monday in response to rising case numbers.

Guangzhou reported more than 520 fresh infections on Tuesday.

New outbreaks have also emerged in northern cities near China’s border with Russia and North Korea as winter approaches.