Less than 24 hours after declaring it would push for employee recruitment, Foxconn -- the main maker of the iPhone -- canceled its plans.
Foxconn said it would stop hiring new employees for its factory in Zhengzhou, China, after the Chinese government imposed various restrictions and lockdowns in the city of 11 million residents.
In fact, previously Foxconn had just admitted that it would launch new employee recruitment to prepare to increase production capacity, as well as to cover excess demand due to limited supply of components for the iPhone 14.
To attract these potential employees, Foxconn offers a bigger bonus, up to 30%. But now, Foxconn has canceled the problem and will complicate the production of the iPhone 14 which will be released in the fall of 2022.
So far, Apple has not expected a delay in the launch of the iPhone 14 series, unlike what happened when the iPhone 12 was launched. The iPhone 12 launch was delayed from September 2020 to October 2020.
But the delay is not impossible, because the majority of the production of Apple products, including the iPhone, is carried out in China. And currently in China, various restrictions and lockdowns are being imposed due to the increase in COVID-19 infections.
This lockdown rule was also what previously made Foxconn rush to recruit employees, because if it had already been hit by a lockdown, its employees would certainly not be able to come to the factory.
At the end of April, Foxconn said there were 200,000 employees working in Zhengzhou, a city better known as the "iPhone City". They also claim that their production so far has not been affected by COVID.
In fact, in mid-April, the City of Shanghai, China again implemented a lockdown due to a spike in COVID-19 cases. iPhone production in the city is also affected and as a result the stock of iPhones is predicted to decrease by up to millions of units.
Pegatron, one of Apple's partners in assembling the iPhone, said it would temporarily halt production at its factories in the cities of Shanghai and Kunshan. These two factories are believed to be the production sites for the iPhone 13, iPhone SE, and several other older iPhone series.
