China factory reforms may signal a big shift

Foxconn employs 1.2 million Chinese who assemble computers and other electronic gadgets. Above, its iPad plant in Chengdu. (Ryan Pyle/New York Times)

By David Barboza and Charles Duhigg

New York Times / February 20, 2012

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The announcement Saturday that Foxconn Technology - one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers - will sharply raise salaries and reduce overtime at its Chinese factories signals that pressure from workers, international markets and concerns among Western consumers about working conditions is driving a fundamental shift that could accelerate an already rapidly changing Chinese economy. But the true meaning of Foxconn’s reforms, analysts say, will depend in part on how effectively the company can remake an economic system that has relied for much of the last decade on luring cheap migrants to work long hours in mammoth factories building smartphones, computers and other electronics.

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