Five Foxconn workers attempt suicide in last month, are we the cause?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 8th 2010 6:14AM
posted April 8th 2010 6:14AM
Whether you know it or not, the people employed by Foxconn, aka, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., have more than likely built something in your home. In fact, the computer or smartphone that you're using -- be it from Apple (yes, the iPad too), Nokia, HP or Dell -- to read these words was probably assembled by the hands of Foxconn workers; remote villagers that dedicate a few years of their lives (and typically 12 hours per day) to Foxconn's manufacturing cities. In return, Foxconn pays a relatively competitive wage that enables its workers to support distant relatives or eventually return to their interior province to purchase land or open up a local shop. So it's a bit startling to hear that five (5!) Foxconn workers at its Longhua plant have attempted suicide since March 11th; a facility that employs, feeds, and houses an estimated 300,000 workers. This is especially disturbing after the much publicized suicide of a Foxconn employee supposedly entrusted with an iPhone prototype. Is our obsession with cheap gadgets from a consumer electronics industry preoccupied with secrecy, profit, and speed, creating the conditions where -- for some -- suicide is the only escape?
Well, our "obsession with cheap gadgets" is definitely not the underlying cause of the suicide rate. So yes, I feel sorry for them, and no, I don't feel guilty.
@devitus
Most Apple products are not cheap
@devitus
Exactly. I mean come on, a place were you get to eat Chinese Food every day can't be all bad!
@devitus
Tracking your corporation employee's suicide rate? Yeah, there's an app for that.
@devitus
Well, we are not responsible for the working conditions set by evil companies. But we definitely support them by buying their products.
@oerlikon Good luck not buying their products.
You know, questions like these, "Is [this] going too far", "How do you feel when [something happens]?", or "Are We the Cause?" are questions penned by the media. I cannot help but sense a gasp after these questions. They seem overly dramatic the way they phrase questions where everything is chaos and drama. Engadget, please don't become like the dramatic media.
@devitus
me either... the town bike coulda got knocked up and told those five guys he the daddy.
@Blackstar *Breaking News* Apple has revoked the "Suicide Watch" app from the app store.
@OCEAN CLAK But they would be a lot more expensive if they were assembled here.
@OCEAN CLAK Apple devices may not be cheap, but with 66% of profit margin, how much can you guess the Chinese manufacturer get?
As I mentioned in the Bill of Material article, it is not possible for Apple's iPad to cost $256.99 or whatever it was. It has to be sub-$150. And that would have to be the landed cost on State's side! It will not make sense for it to be $200+, it will not cover the pocket lining the investors are looking for.
12 hours is an understatement! I worked on some projects for a company that off-shored their work to Foxconn. Foxconn does make the products cheaply... It's just companies want to have 45% to 50% profit margins.
Stock symbol. IN
@OCEAN CLAK Most cutting edge electronics are not cheap.
Wait, 5 suicide attempts in 300,000 people in a month in repressive, Communist China, a country that is completely dependent on its cheap labor force just to keep its people fed?
IT MUST BE APPLE'S FAULT!!!
:/
@HotFuzz
Engadget, please don't become like the dramatic media.
Wow...just wow...
Engadget: OMG...iPhone doesn't have copy and paste....
Dramatic Media: OMG...300 people die in a suicide bombing in India.
I just threw up a little in my mouth
@devitus when i read my tweets, i seriously thought that by "we" they meant engadget, and by cause, i thought they meant the loads of apple news.
@juanvaldez I heard they not only dropped the app, but won't give the developer a reason.
@devitus Its good these didn't happen on these kid-workers - http://bit.ly/apple-child-labor-tactics
@HotFuzz
Okay HotFuzz. Please give us a better plan for industrializing an entire country. Until then, please devote some time to reading things aside from tech blogs, say political science, economics or history maybe?
@HotFuzz Actually 5 suicide attempts out of 300,000 people is a pretty good number. I live in a city with a population smaller than that and we definitely have more than 5 attempts per month here, so really if we go by that metric then the people living under the Chinese communist regime are actually happier and less likely to kill themselves than people in the U.S.
Suicide attempts happen all the time-just stroll over to your local psychiatric emergency room and you'll find a whole slew of people who just tried to kill themselves.
@tekdemon And anyways if you go by percentages then Cornell must be the worst repressive regime ever.
5 out of 300 000? Sounds about right, statistically speaking (unfortunately).
@Golgo +1 for that one. What are the statistics of this in the country this applies to?
@Golgo Not sure about the stats for China but in the UK at least for the year of 2008 there were 17.7 suicides per 100,000 of the population.
Tragic as any death, especially suicide, may be - it would seem that 5 in 300,000 over a period of a month doesn't wildly differ from the norm. Perhaps this is more a reflection on the state of the world at large than just those people employed by Foxconn.
(My stats were taken from UK's Office for National Statistics and, I believe, only refer to deaths by suicide whereas the above article relates to attempted suicides.)
@Golgo
Indeed. China has one of the highest suicide rates in the world with between 250,000 and 300,000 every year!
@Golgo
But they were all foxconn workers, not just 5 random people with nothing in common.
@Golgo
5 people out 300000 is 0.001667%
According to ChindaDaily.com 287k people a year commit suicide in China. China has a population of about 1.3B so that's 0.002208% or 32% higher than Foxconn.
So the headline should read, "Why are Foxconn Employees So Happy?"
@mindintransit
Well thats not really how stats work is it? We're looking at a closed pool of 300,000 people here not the 60 million-ish people that make up the UK population. In terms of level of significance and the time period in which this has happend 5 attempts seems quite high.
@Golgo Exactly. Everything has to be taken into perspective statistically speaking. According to WHO data (http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/) China's suicide rate is 13 males and 14.8 females per 100,000. That would mean the average is (13+14.8)x3= 83.4 persons per 300,000 people. So in effect, the suicide rate at the factory is only 6% of that of the rest of the country. Almost 16x lower! That's actually fantastic news and may signify that the individuals at the factory are much happier because they are employed. Be careful - news can be easily distorted.
@Golgo I guess we should all give up our rich western lives and move in to manufacturing plants, seeing how happy they are according to your logic.
@Golgo Statistics lie less than news (but who does the statistics?)
@kopmis
No one said they have it good; just better than their peers.
@rickybloomfieldgmailcom: Surely you mean the expected return for a one month period, which would be 83.4/12, i.e. 6.95 people committing suicide per month for a sample of 300,000 people. So, the rate of suicide/attempted suicide is not 16X lower like you incorrectly state, but rather about 28% lower than what would be expected (1.95/6.95).
@JamesR Also are these "287k people a year commit suicide in China" including attempts? Because here we have 5 attempts.
@rickybloomfieldgmailcom
"five (5!) Foxconn workers at its Longhua plant have attempted suicide since March 11th"
That's 5 in (less than) a month, which would mean an average of 60 per year.
Country: 83.4 persons per 300,000 people per year
Foxconn: ~60?
Definitely not 16x lower. Although, granted, rates are similar and not over the top as far as Foxconn is concerned.
@rickybloomfieldgmailcom
I think your doing quite a bit of distorting yourself.
Example: say there are on average 5 suicide a year in your country. Now this year 4 of the 5 suicides occur in your place of work. Hey that means your company has beaten the national average even though 4 of the 5 people that killed themselvs this year were your colleages!
You see the localisation needs to be taken into account as well as the fact that this happend in less than a month.
@fais I believe you may be mistaken, as the units do normalize localization.
Country: 83.4 persons per 300,000 people per year
Foxconn: ~60
as per your example lets say your place of work had over 300,000 employees. If only 4 deaths took place at your factory all year, while the national average was 5 per 300,000 per year then your factory would have 20% less suicides per year than by comparison.
@rickybloomfieldgmailcom .8 of a female? Sounds awesome.
@CorbinDullas
Well no I disagree. Your comparing national statistics with statistics in one factory. Comparing 300,000 people spread out over say a city or country to another 300,000 in the localised area of a factory is not the same because the number variables increase (look up the principle of ceteris paribus). Now if you were to use average death in factories or something that would be more appropriate.
Using national averages can be misleading. Heck the average salary in the UK a couple of years ago was over £100,000 because of city bonusus so I could have gone around telling everyone they earning were below average.
@JamesR Except one is a rate for the past month and the other is a rate for *year* but other than that yeah you're spot on. So why is Foxconn's suicide rate 7 to 8 times higher than that of the rest of China?
@mindintransit This is true, but let's actually be a little more factual. These guys are obviously not a good sampling of Chinese workers, as the article clearly points out, these workers have something to look forward to while those that turn to suicide don't.
Now, there could be external factors, such as a sick wife, death of a loved one etc. But rather than look at China's suicide rate (somewhat ignorant by this thread, no offense), we have to look at the last 12-24 months of suicides at the plant and then compare that to other peak months, and possibly most importantly, the trend. If things are getting worse at the plant, they are getting worse and that's something management might be playing a large part of and should look into fixing if they have compassion.
@JamesR
Because Apple tells them to be.
@Golgo I'm so glad someone actually cleared this up.
@fais
You seriously don't understand statistics at all. Maybe you took a course in it or listened to a talk show host and now you are confused.
The rate per 300,000 can be compared, because it gives an indication as to whether working for FoxConn is better (or worse) than being a member of the general population. Now you can do a like mental gymnastics and claim that factory workers in general ought to be happier, and that's fine .. but at least we can say that FoxConn's conditions are better than for the general population. Your point would still be wrong, but might have some sort of validity if there were implausible events like mass suicides related to a cult or something ridiculous like a particular city caused a massive skewing of the numbers .. which you have no proof of and we both know that didn't happen.
Furthermore it's unfair that FoxConn workers' suicide ATTEMPT rate is compared with the general population's successful suicide rate. And yet, FoxConn's rate is lower. FoxConn's suicide ATTEMPT rate is better than MIT's successful suicide rate for example or even the US national average.
@Ian324 yeah keep the body, but subtract the mouth. I'll take two!
@tad604 I can't beleive u would comment here without reading first. You should read the stats again. The average rate of suicide is lower at foxconn than the national average. If you read it and still don't see it that way, repeat step one.
@Golgo
ugh this stats comparison is so risky...
We are comparing attempts from a group of people to 'successes' in a larger group that contains the first.
Maybe this ends up being more attempts then successes per person, over the same length of time... But why has no one mentioned the posibility that a large portion of the overall suicides could be from different demographics... the very old, the young, and most importantly the unemployed?
If most of the nationwide suicides are amongst a different demographic then you are very flawed in assuming that 'all the chinese are alike'. Instead it would be better to know how this number has changed, and how it compares to other similar companies... or how it compares to people from the same demographic overall.
All that being said.. that many attempts... it could be high... but what seems most interesting is that it could be a call for help... attempts often are. Or more specifically it could be there way of calling attention to this issue.
It's quite pathetic, the person who runs the company is one of the richest person in Taiwan. However, thanks to greedy US investment bankers they package sub-prime mortgage into seems harmless investment tools and see them all over the world. See the irony there?
:(
@JimJam707 WRONG! ITS NOT OUR FAULT! ITS NOTTTT