The company thus puts an end to 56 days of confinement and calls on its employees who were not confined on the spot to return to work “as soon as possible”.
Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn ended the lockdown of the world’s largest iPhone factory on Thursday after 56 days of complete isolation, consistent with Beijing’s gradual abandonment of the zero Covid strategy. “In view of (…) the lifting of epidemic control measures in China, the company requires employees to present a negative PCR test less than 48 hours before they can return to work“, nevertheless indicates a notice published Thursday on the official WeChat account of “iPhone city”, the main factory of Foxconn in China, in Zhengzhou, in the province of Henan.
The company has urged employees who have not been confined to return to work “as soon as possible“. Foxconn has thus ended a 56-day forced isolation of the factory. On the site, workers were only allowed to move between their dormitories and their place of work on board specific shuttles. This factory employs some 200,000 people, most of whom live on site.
After an outbreak of Covid-19 cases, the factory had been confined, by decision of local authorities, since October. At the end of November, hundreds of employees had expressed their anger against their living conditions under this health bubble regime. Workers had even fled, causing a labor shortage and threatening the sustainability of iPhone 14 production. On Wednesday, Chinese health authorities announced a general easing of health restrictions, after angry demonstrations in several Chinese cities, and also in the hope of reviving the second largest economy on the planet, suffocated by the policy of “zero covid».
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The slowdown in factory activity induced by this confinement had a considerable impact for Foxconn and destabilized the supply chain, to which Beijing attaches great importance. Last month, Foxconn’s revenue fell 11.4% year-on-year. Foxconn had already announced that it was revising downwards its forecasts for the last quarter of the year. Some analysts predict a drop in sales of up to 20%.