World Provinces Iphone

[Edco Haglund]

Multiplefirms and agencies in cities of provinces including Zhejiang, Shandong, Liaoning and central Hebei, which houses the world's largest iPhone factory, issued their own verbal directives. According to a Reuters report, staff in at least three ministries and government bodies were asked not to use iPhones at work.

The Communist-ruled nation has been seeking to reduce reliance on foreign technologies, and has been asking state-affiliated firms like banks to switch to local software and promoting domestic semiconductor chip manufacturing.

It is no secret that both the US and China view each other's tech companies as potential security risks that could lead to sensitive data being leaked.

In May this year, China had urged big state-owned enterprises to play a key role in its drive to attain self-reliance in technology, raising the stakes in the race amid rifts with the United States.

(With Bloomberg inputs)

If you use an iPhone, chances are it was made at a sprawling factory complex in Zhengzhou, China, a city of about 9.5 million people in what is historically one of the country's poorest provinces, Henan.

The factory, run by the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, employs about 350,000 people and produces about half of the world's iPhones. In the busy summer months before the fall release of a new iPhone, the factory produces 500,000 phones a day, or up to 350 a minute.

But with a workforce rivaling that of many US cities, the factory has sprouted what residents have dubbed "iPhone City." There, factory workers live in dorms in 10- or 12-story buildings outside Foxconn's gates, while a migrating workforce of entrepreneurs and vendors sets up shop below to make a living cooking street food, offering massages, or selling socks and other knickknacks.

"These places aren't like cities," Thomas Dinges, a senior principal analyst at the market-research firm iSuppli, told CKGSB Knowledge of the communities that form around Foxconn's factories, of which there are 12 in China. "They are cities."

Even now, the government provides Foxconn with tons of support, tax incentives, and subsidies to keep production in Zhengzhou. It paved new roads to the factory, built power plants, helps covers energy and transportation costs, and pays bonuses to the factory for meeting export targets.

Meeting Foxconn's never-ending need for workers requires considerable effort from the government. The province enforces quotas for the number of workers that local villages and cities must provide to the factory.

In 2016, state-owned coal companies lent workers to the factory. And last year, the Financial Times reported that trade schools were requiring students as young as 16 to work at the factory to gain "work experience" to graduate. In the run-up to the launch of the iPhone X, many students were found to be working overtime, which is illegal under Chinese law.

Like many of her fellow vendors, Liu is from Henan and used to work at a Foxconn factory. When she was 18, she and her husband, who she had just met through a matchmaker, left their village to move to Shenzhen.

The two worked for several years at Foxconn's Longhua factory, once its largest complex. But when they heard the company was opening a factory closer to their lao jia, or hometown, they took their savings and opened a restaurant to serve the workforce.

By way of evidence, Liu motioned to trays of premade food behind a deli counter. Two years ago, she said, all that food would be sold in the half-hour after opening in the morning, even during the slow months. We were there around 2 p.m., after lunch, and the trays were still more than half full.

No one is positive what will replace the village, but Liu has heard rumors that the government wants to turn the scrublands around the factory into gardens. A new airport is situated next to the factory. No one wants to look at a shantytown and dirt when they fly in.

Most of those arriving know about the factory's reputation for long hours and consistent overtime hours. There are tons of factories to work at in China. Many workers come to Foxconn specifically for the overtime, not in spite of it.

The pay at the Zhengzhou factory is lower than at the one in Shenzhen, but many employees prefer to work in Zhengzhou because it is closer to their hometowns and the cost of living is cheaper, they said.

"Most people want to work overtime," said a 27-year-old factory worker whose family name is Zhang. "If you have something to do, maybe you don't do overtime. If you don't have anything to do, you'll probably work overtime."

The nonprofit Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior estimates that the living wage for iPhone workers should be around $650, meaning workers would need to take on tons of overtime to make ends meet.

The others at the table were Zhang, a surly 27-year-old who spent most of his time fiddling with his smartphone; Hu, a 28-year-old woman married with two kids; and Guo, an affable 40-year-old with a set of pearly white fake front teeth.

"Although they can make up to about 5,000 yuan per month, which is quite high in my eyes, I feel that these workers are not in good health because of all the overtime," one worker who makes 3,000 yuan (about $470) a month as a clerk told the South China Morning Post.

But Chen said he was lucky. Because he didn't have a family yet, he could leave his job and go after a better one. Many people on the assembly line, he said, have to provide for children. Leaving isn't really an option.

Others, they said, play billiards at a bar nearby, sing at a karaoke lounge, play sports in the apartment complex, or play video games at one of the internet cafes. Cover at a club in the town might cost about $1.60, Australian Reseller News reported.

Both Zhang and Chen play video games on their phone, usually the wildly popular Tencent mobile game Honor of Kings. But they have only enough time for a few rounds before they go to sleep around 10 or 11 p.m.

Living conditions have frequently been a point of contention for workers at Foxconn and other Chinese factories. In 2012, several employees rioted at a Foxconn factory to protest poor food and sanitation conditions and overcrowded dorms. One report said the dorms in Shenzhen reeked of rotting trash and sweat.

Though Chen and Hu are both married, their spouses work elsewhere. Hu's husband works at a different factory in Zhengzhou, while Chen's wife works in his hometown. They see each other on Sundays and vacations.

"Life was very simple in the village. We never really thought about the future. We just played marbles," he said. "I have no idea how long I'll be here. One day, there may be a better opportunity. If there is, I'll take it."

That better opportunity didn't seem to be a promotion, a different career, or owning a business. In Zhang's and Chen's eyes, it was another factory job, albeit perhaps one that paid slightly better, was closer to home, or required fewer hours.

Zhang's and Chen's perspective is far from the only one. One worker told the South China Morning Post that he hoped to leave Foxconn within the year, using the skills he learned making phones to open a phone-repair shop. Others speak of opening their own business. In Shenzhen, considered by many to be China's Silicon Valley, there are stories of entrepreneurial factory workers who go on to start companies.

Other reports don't portray life in the factory as rosy. Employees told CNET in 2012 that managers would often subject employees who made mistakes to public humiliation. The Guardian reported last year that if someone were to mess up, a manager could force them to prepare a formal apology to read to their coworkers.

"The wages are low, the days very long, the conditions quite bad. The industry wears out employees very quickly and recruits nonstop. For low-skilled jobs, the use of trainees and temporary workers is massive."

This map displays the average price (in Canadian dollars, national VAT rates included) in 37 representative countries for an iPhone 12 (256GB) as of January 2021. It is made upon data provided by the Mac Index website, whose rankings are filled in with Apple website metadatas.

Since the first iPhone was launched in 2007, it has become one of the most purchased products throughout the world. Even if the competition on the smartphones market is getting always stronger, the iPhone price remains in 2021 a very reliable indicator for what concerns the cost of tech products in the different parts of the world.

When looking at our map, Canada appears number 3 in the ranking of the countries where buying an iPhone is the cheapest in the world, with an average price of 1339 CA$. However, this indicative price does not include the local consumption taxes that apply in every Canadian province on consumer goods. It is therefore interesting to apply those local taxes to have the estimated final price of an iPhone 12 in the different provinces of Canada.

First of all, we assume here that the average prices of the iPhone 12 (256 GB) displayed on the map reflect the price of the iPhone models in general in all the countries selected. When looking at the world iPhone 12 price index, at least 3 trends appear:

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The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) maintains a list of goods and their source countries which it has reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor in violation of international standards, as required under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2005 and subsequent reauthorizations. The List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor comprises 159 goods from 78 countries and areas, as of September 28, 2022.

ILAB maintains the List primarily to raise public awareness about forced labor and child labor around the world and to promote efforts to combat them; it is not intended to be punitive, but rather to serve as a catalyst for more strategic and focused coordination and collaboration among those working to address these problems.

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