Indian government investigates claims Foxconn won’t hire married women • The Register

India’s Ministry of Labor and Employment has ordered an investigation into Foxconn — the contract manufacturing supplier also known as Hon Hai Precision and one of Apple’s main suppliers — after reports emerged that the company would not hire married women for to work at its main iPhone assembly plant on the subcontinent.

The inquiry is in the form of a request for a “detailed report” from the Tamil Nadu state government’s Labor Department. Foxconn’s largest Indian facility is located in Sriperumbudur, a city in Tamil Nadu.

“Section 5 of the Equal Remuneration Act 1976 clearly stipulates that no discrimination shall be made in the recruitment of male and female workers,” the ministry reasoned on Wednesday. “As the State Government is the competent authority for the enforcement and administration of the provisions of this Act, therefore the report has been sought from the State Government.”

A Reuters report published a day before the Ministry’s move alleged that Foxconn had systematically excluded married women from employment at the Sriperumbudur plant.

The reported justification for the policy was that married women face family burdens, pregnancy and absenteeism. A secondary justification for their exclusion was that the usual ornaments worn by married women in India—such as finger rings and necklaces—are usually not removed and present safety hazards in the production environment.

Foxconn outsources factory employment to third-party suppliers. These vendors were allegedly trained by executives to ignore the cohort and freely communicated the marriage requirement to candidates in job ads, pamphlets and WhatsApp chats.

The ban, however, is not absolute. During periods of high production, labor shortage management is relaxed, and agencies have indicated they would help women hide their marital status — especially if their state ID card has not been updated to indicate their marriage. Foxconn denied the discriminatory policy to Reuters, as did Apple.

Apple’s supplier said in 2022 that it had taken corrective action against four agencies that posted ads “that did not meet (the company’s) standards.”

Register has asked Foxconn for further comment and will report back if a substantial response materializes.

Few Indian women work outside the home.

According to the World Bank, as of 2022, less than one in four Indian women work like this. Also, in 2022, India’s National Family Health Survey found that 32 percent of married women in India were employed—and 15 percent of women who worked outside the home were unpaid.

The survey also found that hiring managers routinely consider marital status when making job supply decisions, even though it is well documented that economies benefit when both sexes participate in the paid workforce and suffer when they do not. do.

India’s government is keen to remove impediments that prevent the nation from meeting its goal of becoming a major manufacturing hub, meaning it may have to overcome societal norms that could harm the industry.

According to its production target, the country is on track to produce a quarter of the world’s iPhones by 2028. ®