Here's one way to avoid paying the hefty raises promised to 300,000 workers at the suicide-plagued Foxconn electronics plant in Shenzhen, China: move most of them to less expensive, remote plants in other parts of the country. Foxconn is apparently keeping the iPhone workers in Shenzhen, but moving Hewlett Packard and other production to Tianjin, Yantai, or Wuhan. The minimum monthly wage in the Shenzhen plant, near Hong Kong, is now 1,100 yuan ($161), China Daily reports, and as low as 900 yuan in the other locations.
The higher wages, plus a bonus that would have raised salaries to 2,000 yuan after 3 months, were seen as a threat to Foxconn's bottom line, and a trigger for wage inflation throughout China.
(More Foxconn stories.)