HONG KONG/TAIPEI -- Apple's iPhone suppliers are cutting tens of thousands of seasonal jobs months earlier than normal as the industry suffers one of its most severe downturns in a decade.
Around 50,000 contract workers have been let go since October at Foxconn Technology Group's most important iPhone factory at Zhengzhou, in China's Henan Province, according to an industry source familiar with the situation. Normally, the contracts of these workers would be renewed every month from August until mid- to late January, when the workforce is traditionally scaled back for the slow iPhone production season.