Foxconn workers faced tough conditions making iPhone 17, says labour group

By Chris Welch

 

Chinese factory workers suffered difficult conditions while racing to get Apple Inc.’s new iPhone 17 lineup ready, according to a report from China Labor Watch.

 

Staff at the Zhengzhou facility of Foxconn Technology Group, Apple’s production partner, had to contend with wage withholding, excessive overtime and forced night shifts, the nonprofit organization said Thursday. The report focused on the period of March to September, when Apple and its suppliers were readying the latest iPhone.

 

The investigation highlighted a number of labor rights concerns and alleged that Foxconn is violating Chinese law by employing a large percentage of temporary “dispatch” workers. It also blamed “unstable orders” for creating an environment under which factory workers are facing constant pressure and intimidation. 

 

In response to the report, Apple said it’s “firmly committed to the highest standards of labor, human rights, environmental and ethical conduct.”

 

“Our suppliers are required to provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, act fairly and ethically, and use environmentally responsible practices wherever they make products or perform services for Apple,” the company said in a statement. “We regularly conduct third-party audits, and anytime an issue is raised anywhere in our supply chain, we move swiftly to ensure that our high standards are upheld. In this case, Apple teams were on site and began an immediate investigation.”

 

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou complex — so large that it’s often described as iPhone city — employed 150,000 to 200,000 workers during the March-September time frame, according to the report. Temporary workers accounted for more than 50% of total staff — a level that’s “five times the legal limit under Chinese law,” the group alleged.

 

Foxconn’s pay structure, which holds back a second portion of wages until the following month, left some dispatch workers without weeks’ worth of overtime pay if they resigned before a particular cutoff date, China Labor Watch said. And excessive overtime continues to be a prevalent issue, the report alleged. 

 

“Most workers clocked 60 to 75 hours per week, well above China’s legal maximum and Apple’s own 60-hour weekly cap,” the organization said. China Labor Watch documented the presence of Apple employees at the Zhengzhou facility and claims this suggests that the US company’s representatives “are aware of the working conditions.” 

 

Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., said it doesn’t “stand for discrimination” and that the health and safety of its workers is its top priority. It said that it welcomes “constructive dialogue with all stakeholders and are ready to share our improvement measures and progress.”

 

The report cited concerns about coercion of young workers with student status, alleging that they were often forced onto night shifts for low pay. China Labor Watch also claimed that there was discriminatory hiring that excluded multiple ethnicities, exposure to hazardous chemicals without adequate protective equipment, and widespread harassment and intimidation. “Workers who raised complaints were subjected to surveillance, threats and even the public release of personal information,” the organization said.

 

China Labor Watch said “many” of these problems have worsened since the organization’s last investigation in 2019. But it acknowledged a slight improvement in some areas, such as total overtime. In the previous report, workers tallied an average of 100 to 130 hours per month during peak season — though some still reached similar totals in 2025. The investigation also found no instances of underage workers at Foxconn’s facility after identifying “some vocational school minors” in 2019. 

 

Though the Zhengzhou facility remains the global production hub for Apple’s smartphones, the American company has been diversifying its supply. Earlier this year, Apple expanded iPhone production in India to fulfill the majority of US demand — an attempt to mitigate the impact of tariffs on goods exported from China.

 

Apple releases its own annual supply chain reports and says it collects working hours data on a weekly basis for more than 1.4 million supplier employees. In 2024, the company conducted 1,514 total audits of its global supply chain and interviewed more than 74,000 supplier employees.

 

Of the 10 core violations that Apple uncovered last year, nine related to “falsification violations resulting from improperly reported working hours data and one was a health and safety violation related to machine safety practices that did not meet our standards,” the company wrote in its 2025 report.