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Apple CEO Steve Jobs has defended conditions in Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory in China, following 13 suicide attempts and 10 deaths this year.
While insisting Apple is investigating the situation, the BBC reports him as saying: "You go in this place and it’s a factory but, my gosh, they’ve got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it’s pretty nice."
He went on to say: "Foxconn is not a sweatshop."
Other technology firms which use the factory, including HP and Dell have also made clear their concerns about the suicides.
Foxconn has raised pay among Chinese workers by around 30 per cent, a move which it claims have been on the cards for a while, and have nothing to do with the recent string of suicides.
Foxconn maintains the working conditions are fine, going so far as to boast of the sporting facilities and dormitories where workers live. It has however apparently called in Buddhist monks and psychiatrists to provide counselling, and installing nets on buildings to catch people attempting to jump.
