Foxconn Will Replace Workers With 1 Million Robots in 3 Years

excerpt:

"Foxconn International Holdings Ltd., a Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer, is perhaps best known as that place overseas where more 18 employees attempted suicide in a period running from January through November of 2010. In response to the first wave of suicides, the company increased wages, installed preventative netting to stop people from jumping to their deaths and had its nearly 1,200,000 employees to sign no-suicide pledges. But it's hard to keep that many people in line. While the number of suicide attempts has fallen, the phenomenon has not ended.

Foxconn employees, who work long hours in cramped conditions assembling Apple's iThings (among other products), are giving up. In late May, an unidentified 20-year-old male fell off a building and died; he was the second employee to die of unnatural causes this year."

"It's OK, though: Gou announced the bad news to his employees -- that the robots will be coming for their jobs -- at a dance party organized for the Foxconn team, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported."


http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/foxconn-will-replace-workers-with-1-million-robots-in-3-years/242810/

i just changed my mind about getting an ithingy... or even "wanting" one...

Hey- they're moving to robotics. Problem solved. Robots aren't usually suicidal.

Now they can exploit the people who build and maintain the robots.