Foxconn Asks Indian Recruiters To Remove Marital Status From Job Ads

Over four months after Foxconn has been alleged of excluding married women from jobs at its iPhone assembly facility in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur, the Apple supplier has now reportedly directed its recruiting agents to align their advertisements without such specifications in India.

As per Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, Foxconn has instructed its recruitment agents in the country to remove age, gender, marital status criteria and the company’s name from job advertisements for iPhone assembly positions.

In late June, the company’s HR executives provided standardised recruitment templates to vendors and directed them to avoid media contact. During the meeting, vendors were warned about contract termination if they continue using its name in advertisements, the report added.

The instructions for ads were: Don’t mention the unmarried requirement, don’t mention age, nor male or female either.

According to Reuters, several updated ads, which now highlight job benefits, without mentioning the employer or discriminatory criteria.

The move comes following allegations that the Apple supplier was functioning with discriminatory hiring practices and excluding married women from jobs at its iPhone assembling facility at Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur.

Foxconn excludes married women from jobs on the grounds that they have more family responsibilities compared to unmarried counterparts, back then an investigation by Reuters revealed.

This was investigated by the officials from the labour department by visiting Foxconn’s factory in Tamil Nadu on the company’s hiring practices, in early July.

Meanwhile, chairman Young Liu, during his India visit, said that the company hires employees regardless of gender, when he also mentioned that the company has invested about $10 Bn in the country.

The iPhone maker has so far denied all the allegations and claimed that 25% of its new hires were married women. Foxconn went on to claim that the Foxconn factory employed about 70% women. 

It is noted that Foxconn presently has around 48,000 employees in the country.

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