Foxconn employee jumps to death in southwest China

Forbes Conrad/Bloomberg

Safety netting surrounds a building at the Longhua Science & Technology Park, also known as Foxconn city, in Shenzhen, China, on Monday, April 18, 2011.

Kin Cheung/AP

A security guard stands at the entrance of the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Southern city in China, Thursday, May 27, 2010. A young man became the 10th worker to jump to his death at a Foxconn Technology Group factory in the city, just hours after the company's chairman toured the plant that makes iPods and other top-selling gadgets, state-run media said.

BEIJING ? A Foxconn Technology Group employee jumped to his death Wednesday from a company-rented apartment building in southwest China?s Sichuan province, local police said.

At least a dozen Foxconn employees have jumped to their deaths or tried to do so since 2010, casting spotlight on the world?s largest contract maker of electronics. The Taiwan-based company has been besieged with reports of poor working and living conditions for its workers at factories and dorms. The company installed nets in 2010 to prevent such deaths after the spate of suicides.

A public security bureau in Chengdu city announced the death Wednesday on the Sina Weibo microblogging site. The post identifies the employee only by the surname Xie and says the cause remains under investigation.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the man was 23.

In February, Foxconn ? which employs about 1 million workers at its massive plants in China ? said it had raised wages by up to 25 percent and that it was taking measures to limit workers? total work hours.

The plants that turn out iPhones, iPads, Xbox video game consoles, Dell and Hewlett-Packard computers, are run with military-like discipline.

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