‘Don’t mention unmarried requirement…’: Apple iPhone maker Foxconn asks Indian headhunters to tweak job criteria on ads

Apple manufacturer Foxconn has instructed the hiring agents who help recruit iPhone assembly workers in India to remove age, gender, and marital status criteria along with the company's name from job advertisements, Reuters reported on Monday, November 18, quoting three people familiar with the development.

“The instructions for ads were: Don't mention the unmarried requirement, don't mention age, nor male or female either,” said one person cited in the report.

The company did not respond to the news agency's questions about the instructions to the recruiters and whether or not it had ended restrictions on the employment of married women for the iPhone assembly job roles. Apple Inc. refused to comment on similar questions. Both Foxconn and Apple earlier said that Foxconn hired married women in India, as per the report.

The agency reviewed an advertisement for a smartphone assembly position that did not mention Foxconn's name, age, gender, or marital criteria. The advertisement listed benefits: “Air-conditioned workplace, free transport, canteen facility, free hostel and a monthly salary of 14,974 rupees, or nearly $177," according to the agency report.

The advertisement text matched nine Foxconn vendor ads that the agency reviewed in October. As per the report, some of those ads were in Tamil, posted on the walls, and circulated on WhatsApp. 

Even though the ads did not identify the employer, two out of three vendor sources told the agency that the advertisements were from Foxconn.

“Foxconn gives us the ads to run for hiring. We only use those,” a manager at hiring agency Proodle told the news agency. Eight out of 12 hiring vendors of Foxconn refused to discuss the hiring practices.

One vendor, Groveman Global, advertised in 2023 for mobile manufacturing jobs for unmarried women aged 18 to 32. This language was absent in three new Groveman ads that the agency reviewed last month.

A Groveman's office representative refused to comment on the changes, as per the report.

Foxconn Investigation

Foxconn's move comes after an investigation by the news agency on June 25 revealed that the iPhone maker excluded married women from jobs at its main India iPhone assembly plant even though it relaxed the practice during high-production periods. 

Foxconn employs thousands of women at the iPhone factory in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, but it outsources the recruitment of assembly-line workers to third-party recruiters. These agents scout and screen eligible candidates, who are then interviewed and selected by Foxconn, as per the report.

According to the agency's June review, Foxconn's ads through the Indian hiring vendors between January 2023 and May 2024 said only unmarried women of specified ages were eligible for smartphone assembly roles, breaching Apple and Foxconn's anti-discrimination policies.

Foxconn HR executives directed many of the Indian recruiters to standardise recruitment materials in accordance with templates provided by the company, two people who were aware of the development told the news agency.

The HR executives cited media reports of the company's hiring practices and “warned us not to use Foxconn's name in any ads going forward, and told us our contracts would be terminated if we did,” one of the agents told the news agency. 

Apple's India move

Apple has been positioning India as an alternative to China for product manufacturing amid the rising tension between the United States and China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government views Foxconn's iPhone factory and Apple's broader supply chain as a move up in the economic value chain.

After the June story, the Indian government ordered federal and state investigations into hiring practices at the Foxconn plant. The labour officials visited the facility in July and interviewed company executives, but the findings were not made public information, as per the report.

The Tamil Nadu state government refused to provide a copy of the investigation report made under India's Right to Information Act, citing confidentiality, as per the agency report.

Central and state officials did not respond to the agency's queries about the outcome of their investigation into Foxconn's hiring practices.

Media scrutiny of Foxconn's employment practices had necessitated changes to job advertising because of the reputational impact on the company and its client, Apple, said Dilip Cherian, a communications consultant and co-founder of a public relations firm Perfect Relations, reported the agency.

It is yet to be seen “whether this move represents a real change of heart or just a cosmetic and appropriately legal response to the fact that they have been called out,” Cherian told the news agency. 

Foxconn Chairman Young Liu, during an August visit to India, said that married women “greatly contribute to the efforts of what we're doing here.” Liu met Prime Minister Modi and discussed India's investment plans.