Foxconn and the suicides
You have probably heard about the recent suicide of a tenth worker at Foxconn, the manufacturer of iPhones and some other Apple products. When I heard this story (not long after the report of the ninth suicide) my immediate thought was: OK, how significant is this? How many people actually work there? Now it turns out that was exactly the right thought. They have about 800,000 employees . Ten suicides therefore, sad as it is, is 1.25 suicides per 100,000 of population. This would place Foxconn among the lowest- ranked countries in the world for suicides - lower than any developed nation and less than a twentieth of the rate in Japan or Lithuania. Typical rates in most countries are about 10, meaning a Foxconn employee is eight times less likely to commit suicide than in Europe or America. Most strikingly, non-Foxconn employees in China are eleven times more likely to kill themselves than Foxconn employees! Looking into it further, there are some details which slightly modi...