Foxconn, a major Apple supplier, has systematically stopped employing married women in India due to “post-marriage issues”.
An investigative report by Reuters suggests Foxconn’s labour requirements specifically include ‘no married women’ citing more family responsibilities, pregnancies and higher absenteeism compared to unmarried women.
The plant located at Sriperumbudur near Chennai also preferred women who did not wear jewellery (mainly mangalsutra or thaali).
S Paul, a former human resources executive at Foxconn India, stated that the company’s executives verbally communicated the hiring rules to their Indian hiring agencies.
Recruitment through third parties
Foxconn engages in third-party vendors for hiring its employees. These vendors should be registered with the Tamil Nadu government as Foxconn’s official service providers. These hiring agents select and screen the candidates who then are interviewed by contract electronic manufacturers. The hiring agents get anywhere between $10 and $15 per employee.
However, Reuters reported that the plant does hire married women during staff shortages and increased production time.
Foxconn, Apple refute allegations
Foxconn strongly denied the allegations of “employment discrimination based on marital status, gender or any other reasons”. In a statement, it said that nearly 25% of the women hired recently are married, and these women are allowed to wear traditional metal ornaments at work.
“We enhanced our management process for hiring agencies in India in 2022 and identified four agencies that were posting ads that did not meet our standards. We took corrective action with those agencies and more than 20 job ads were removed,” Foxconn said in a statement.
Apple representatives did not comment.
Reuters investigations are based between January 2023 and May 2024.
