Reports and videos online appear to show staff at Apple’s largest gathering site in Zhengzhou, China, climbing barbed-wire fences and fleeing factory campuses to avoid COVID-19 lockdown measures, some walking more than a hundred kilometers back to their hometowns.
Zhengzhou, colloquially known as “iPhone City,” is home to Foxconn’s largest meeting floor, where Apple makes all of its iPhone models, and adds the new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro. The plant would house about 300,000 employees.
Footage shared through the BBC’s Stephen McDonell appears to show barbed rope fences of site staff to escape. McDonell reports that “staff escaped from Apple’s largest meeting site, escaping the Zero Covid lockdown at Foxconn in Zhengzhou.
The workers escaped from #Apple’s largest gathering site, escaping the Zero #Covid blockade at Foxconn in #Zhengzhou. After sneaking in, they march to their villages more than a hundred kilometers away to beat the Covid app measures designed for other people and prevent this. October #Chino pic. twitter. com/NHjOjclAyU30, 2022
McDonnell reports that staff are “walking to home cities more than a hundred miles away” to beat the Chinese COVID app. Other photographs and reports from the region appear to show that some staff members who escaped were detained “while seeking to return home. “McDonell shared photographs of staff being picked up between passing cars.
According to McDonell’s report, the leak “followed what staff saw as misleading data from bosses about instances of Covid in the huge factory complex,” and pointed to an employee who fled after being denied leave.
Reuters reports that the strict measures may have a big effect on iPhone production, which “may fall by as much as 30%” on the site next month. Foxconn is reportedly struggling to ramp up production in Shenzhen to compensate.
Images shared on Weibo appear to verify McDonell’s report, which appears skirting roads and driving in the back of trucks.
Amazing photographs are circulating on Weibo right now. Young Foxconn walks home from the Zhengzhou plant, where an outbreak is causing lockdowns. Some picked up through truckers, fixed to the back of the bed. It seems like another time pic. twitter. com/BvnxcBn6JW30 October 2022
Last week, it reported that “a small number of employees” had been affected by the virus and that strict lockdown measures had been implemented. According to Bloomberg, Foxconn is preparing to bring aid production online and raise hourly wages by 36% to stem the exodus.
Apple will cut iPhone production by 14% in the first quarter of 2023 due to inflation, according to TrendForce
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