Workers are seen at a workshop in Longhua science and technology park of Foxconn Technology Group in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Feb 22, 2019. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)

Taiwan-headquartered Foxconn is hiring on a massive scale with some factories in the Chinese mainland interviewing more than 1,000 applicants a day and offering bonuses for new employees and the recruiters who introduced them.

The hiring drive comes as Apple's main manufacturing partner moves into its peak production season, insiders say. Apple would delay the production of its new iPhone 12 series due to weaker-than-expected demand due to the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apple would delay production of new products due to weaker-than-expected demand, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo with TF International Securities said in a statement published on Friday.

However, a manager with the recruitment sector of Foxconn's factory in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province said Tuesday that the facility is hiring workers aged 18 to 45 with a monthly salary of about 8,000 yuan ($1,150). A middleman may receive a 1,500-yuan bonus for each successful worker candidate.

Although the salaries are already very attractive compared with several months ago, it's still difficult to find enough workers.

"We are recruiting up to 1,000 people a day for doing semi-finished assembly and testing of mobile phones, including the iPhone 12," the manager said. 

The manager said that the facility is also making mobiles for Huawei and Xiaomi, and these customers account for a rising proportion of their produc-tion.

Some factories are offering even higher bonuses for successful employee candidates and middlemen.

A manager surnamed Wang at the recruitment center of Foxconn's plant in Central China's Zhengzhou, one of the major assembly lines for iPhones, said Tuesday that there is a shortage of workers and the plant is recruiting as many workers as possible.

"We can arrange interviews for 10,000 to 20,000 people a day," he said, add-ing that successful candidates may get a maximum 9,000-yuan bonus on top of their salary after working for 120 days, while previously it was about 4,000 yuan or less.

Since now it's peak production season, there's more overtime work available, and some staff can put in 10 hours a day, compared with a normal eight-hour shift, Wang said.

Production of all iPhone 12 models was to have started in July, but it was un-clear if that would result in all models launching simultaneously, DigiTimes reported in June.

Foxconn said it wouldn't comment on any customers or products when reached by the Global Times Tuesday.
Newspaper headline: Foxconn launches massive recruiting campaign