Foxconn rejects married women from India iPhone jobs: Report

SRIPERUMBUDUR, India: The two women standing near the entrance to the iPhone factory in southern India were upset.

CHENNAI: Job aspirants talk with a hiring agent outside the Foxconn factory, where workers assemble iPhones for Apple, in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. -- Reuters.

Parvathi and Janaki, sisters in their 20s, had come to the plant, run by major Apple supplier Foxconn, for interviews in March 2023 after seeing job ads on WhatsApp. But they had been turned away at the main gate by a security officer who stopped them and asked: “Are you married?”

“We didn’t get the jobs as we both are married,” Parvathi later said in an interview at her village shanty. “Even the auto-rickshaw driver who took us from the bus stand to the Foxconn facility told us they wouldn’t take married women,” she added. “We thought we would still give it a shot.”

A Reuters investigation has found that Foxconn has systematically excluded married women from jobs at its main India iPhone assembly plant, on the grounds they have more family responsibilities than their unmarried counterparts. S Paul, a former human-resources executive at Foxconn India, said the company’s executives verbally convey the recruitment rules to its Indian hiring agencies, which Foxconn tasks with scouting for candidates, bringing them in for interviews and employing them.

‘Cultural issues’

Foxconn typically doesn’t hire married women because of “cultural issues” and societal pressures, said Paul, who said he left the company in August 2023 for a better-paying role at a consulting firm. The company’s view was that there were “many issues post-marriage,” Paul added. Among them: Women “have babies after marriage.”

“Risk factors increase when you hire married women,” he said. Paul’s account was corroborated by 17 employees from more than a dozen Foxconn hiring agencies in India, and four current and former Foxconn human-resources executives. Twelve of these sources spoke on condition of anonymity. The agents and the Foxconn HR sources cited family duties, pregnancy and higher absenteeism as reasons why Foxconn did not hire married women at the plant, located at Sriperumbudur, near the city of Chennai. Many of these people also said jewelry worn by married Hindu women could interfere with production.

The ban isn’t absolute. Three former Foxconn HR executives told Reuters that the Taiwan-headquartered manufacturer relaxes the practice of not hiring married women during high-production periods when it sometimes faces labor shortages. In some cases, hiring agencies help female candidates conceal their marital status to secure jobs, Reuters found. In response to questions from Reuters, Apple and Foxconn acknowledged lapses in hiring practices in 2022 and said they had worked to address the issues. All the discriminatory practices documented by Reuters at the Sriperumbudur plant, however, took place in 2023 and 2024. The companies didn’t address those instances. They also didn’t specify whether any of the lapses in 2022 related to the hiring of married women.

While Indian law doesn’t bar companies from discriminating in hiring based on marital status, Apple’s and Foxconn’s policies prohibit such practice in their supply chains. Apple told Reuters it upholds the “highest supply chain standards in the industry,” and noted that Foxconn employs some married women in India.

“When concerns about hiring practices were first raised in 2022 we immediately took action and worked with our supplier to conduct monthly audits to identify issues and ensure that our high standards are upheld,” Apple said in a statement. “All of our suppliers in India hire married women, including Foxconn.” In a statement, Foxconn said it “vigorously refutes allegations of employment discrimination based on marital status, gender, religion or any other form.”

Between January 2023 and May 2024, Reuters made more than 20 trips to Sriperumbudur and spoke to dozens of jobseekers about the hiring process. Reporters also reviewed a candidate information pamphlet, dozens of job ads and records of WhatsApp discussions in which four of Foxconn’s third-party recruiters stated to prospective candidates that only unmarried women were eligible for assembly jobs. The ads make no mention of the hiring of men.

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, outsources its hiring of assembly-line workers to third-party vendors, who must be registered with the Tamil Nadu state government as official Foxconn service providers. The hiring agents scout for and screen the candidates, who ultimately are interviewed and selected by Foxconn. These same vendors directly employ the workers and manage the payroll, getting paid about $10 to $15 a month per employee, three hiring agents said.

Apple and Foxconn each require their suppliers to adhere to their respective codes of conduct. Assembly lines entirely or predominantly staffed by women have emerged in some industries in India. That’s in line with Modi’s efforts to boost female labor-force participation - which official data shows is around 37 percent, compared with almost 80 percent for men.

Married ‘not allowed’

In addition to the sisters, Parvathi and Janaki, Reuters spoke to five other women who said they were rejected by Foxconn’s hiring vendors on the grounds that they were married. Priya Darshini received the news in a WhatsApp group chat, which a recruiter from SS Enterprises, one of the hiring agencies, had created to scout for candidates.

Darshini posed questions to the group in August 2023, according to a transcript reviewed by Reuters: “I have a baby. Are there child care facilities? Could I bring my baby? Age is 2. Salary?”

The recruiter, T. Balu, sent a curt reply: Married “not allowed.” Asked about his response, Balu told Reuters that Foxconn does not hire married women, who wear ornaments, because it wants to ensure a metal-free zone. Darshini, who is in her late 20s, told Reuters she is seeking help from friends and family to find a job that would allow her to care for her child.

Paul, the former HR executive, said Foxconn management advises its hiring vendors not to mention marital and age criteria in their job ads. But in some instances, vendors did not heed that advice.

“Job vacancy for Only Female ... iPhone Manufacturing ... Age: 19 to 30 Unmarried,” said an ad posted by a recruiter at Proodle, a hiring agency for Foxconn, in a publicly accessible WhatsApp group in February 2024. — Reuters.