Foxconn employee jumps to death in southwest China

BEIJING (AP) -- A Foxconn Technology Group employee jumped to his death Wednesday from a company-rented apartment building in southwest China's Sichuan province, local police said.

At least a dozen Foxconn employees have jumped to their deaths or tried to do so since 2010, casting spotlight on the world's largest contract maker of electronics. The Taiwan-based company has been besieged with reports of poor working and living conditions for its workers at factories and dorms. The company installed nets in 2010 to prevent such deaths after the spate of suicides.

A public security bureau in Chengdu city announced the death Wednesday on the Sina Weibo microblogging site. The post identifies the employee only by the surname Xie and says the cause remains under investigation.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the man was 23.

In February, Foxconn - which employs about 1 million workers at its massive plants in China - said it had raised wages by up to 25 percent and that it was taking measures to limit workers' total work hours.

The plants that turn out iPhones, iPads, Xbox video game consoles, Dell and Hewlett-Packard computers, are run with military-like discipline.

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