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The Hon Hai company is based in Taiwan and operates factories in China. The U.S. company
Apple and other top electronic brands hire Hon Hai to make products, including iPads and
iPhones.
The CEO of Hon Hai is Terry Gou. Mr. Gou recently told reporters that Hon Hai is replacing 70
percent of its manufacturing process with an automatic system. He says machines will do most
of the work that people do now. Mr. Gou expects the changes to be finished in three years.
Jamie Wang is a researcher with a business in Taipei that studies markets. She says using robots
is an increasingly common change in manufacturing. Even the popular company Apple is
planning to depend more on robots, she says. So, she says, manufacturers like Hon Hai must
keep up with the market and reduce their costs.
Using robots may also reduce Hon Hai's risk of labor disputes. In the past five years, some
workers in Hon Hais Chinese factories have protested workplace conditions and even killed themselves. The events have damaged the company. Now, fewer workers are depending on Hon
Hai for jobs.
Geoff Crothall is a spokesman for the China Labor Bulletin advocacy group in Hong Kong. He
says people are no longer forming long lines to try to work in factories. He says some Chinese
workers are staying in school longer and seeking higher levels of education. Others are simply
finding better jobs in other places.
Changes in China
Companies such as Hon Hai are also facing rising wages for factory work in China. Those wages
rose 13 percent in 2014.
At the same time, the cost of living in eastern China is increasing. Some workers are moving to
less expensive but less developed cities. And, foreign investments, especially in manufacturing,
are slowing. Direct investments grew at only two percent last year.
Liang Kuo-yuan is chairman of the Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute in Taipei. He says
companies as large as Hon Hai need to bring more machines into their manufacturing process.
He says the company must move toward automatic systems as costs rise and the number of
workers drops.
Hon Hai refused VOA requests for details on its plans. But the company has said it hopes to
grow in the United States. It also says it wants to open a $1 billion research and development
center in Indonesia.