Foxconn to Add 300,000 Robots Without Layoffs

The world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer will add 300,000 robots to its assembly lines without cutting any of its 1.2 million workers in China, said Foxconn founder and chairman Terry Guo Saturday while in Shenzhen.

Foxconn plans to produce about 1,000 robots a day during 2012 for a total of 300,000 robots to take on routine and dangerous tasks to boost the company’s productivity and efficiency, said Guo. But the Taiwanese tycoon pledged that Foxconn’s current workforce won’t suffer any cuts because of the automation and despite the widely perceived downturn in manufacturing.

In July Guo had said that within three years Foxconn would replace some of its workers with 1 million robots to keep down rising labor costs for simple and routine tasks like spraying, welding and assembling.

Foxconn assembles components into finished tech products for Apple, Sony and Nokia. It came under fire for its demanding working conditions and low pay after workers at its Chinese plants kept the company in the news during the past two years with a string of suicides and violent disturbances.

After that Foxconn raised pay at its immense Shenzhen factories and began building more plants in less costly inland regions of China.