Today, the 11th Foxconn employee this year jumped from a factory building, and became the 9th to die. This came just hours after Foxconn's CEO Guo Tai-ming gave his first official response about the numerous tragedies.
While it's still not confirmed whether the 19 year old man who fell from a Foxconn building this morning at 6.30am local-time actually jumped or fell, it follows a spate of other deaths in the last five months—not to mention reports of guards beating employees, and the tough working conditions. The latest death, Li Hai, had only worked at Foxconn for 42 days.
Guo Tai-ming told reporters yesterday that despite all these suicides, the company isn't a "sweatshop," and according to MIC Gadget, who watched the Chinese news report, he admitted it's difficult to handle all 800,000 employees. The news report can be watched here, though it's in Chinese. [Foxconn CEO: Taiwan Apple Daily via Now News via MIC Gadget. Suicide: Xinhuanet via iFeng via MIC Gadget]