Apple reportedly told the companies that assemble the iPhone to replace up to 50% of their employees with automation.
It’s an ongoing effort, and one that supposedly began after riots at a Foxconn plant several years ago over stringent Covid restrictions.
Cutting workers: The impact of automation in the iPhone assembly process
Although iPhone components come from around the world, the actual assembly of the devices mostly happens in China, though India is taking a larger role. It’s not always a smooth process. A series of suicides at assembly plants in China owned by Foxconn drew global attention in 2010, as did COVID-19-related riots in “iPhone City” in 2022. The latter event brought a change in policy, according to a report published Monday.
“Apple’s senior vice president of operations, Sabih Khan, issued an edict to his organization, instructing managers to reduce the number of workers on iPhone final assembly lines by as much as 50% over the next few years,” said The Information.
The effort is supposedly being lead by Peter Thompson, Apple’s vice president of technical operations for iPhone, VPG and core technologies.
“Thompson’s team has successfully automated parts of the iPhone’s assembly, working closely with manufacturing partners such as Foxconn, Luxshare Precision and Pegatron,” said The Information. “Those successes include machines that install metal brackets and flexible printed circuit boards onto components without human aid.”
More machines, fewer people
The companies assembling iPhones for Apple have resisted the change because automation machinery costs millions of dollars while paying Chinese or Indian workers to do the same tasks is relatively inexpensive. But Apple is pressing ahead. And, as The Information notes, “If those efforts continue, they could have far-reaching implications for where Apple makes products and China’s labor market.”
iPhone is assembled in China and India because labor is cheap, as noted. But a very heavily automated iPhone assembly plant in the United States could cost the same to run as one in China, especially when one takes into account the simmering China/U.S. trade war.
