back to article Foxconn is world's 10th biggest employer: 1.2 MILLION on payroll

iPad-maker Foxconn is the world's 10th biggest employer, and can count staff members over half those of China's Red Army, according to a new piece of research by the BBC. Altogether 1.2 million people are employed in the Taiwanese assembly and electronics company, which churns out the world's most popular gadgets including the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    and one toilet to go round all of them.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    if

    State employed workers in the UK had to work to Foxconn methods rules and regal they would all be running screaming to their Union.

    But productivity would be sky high!

    1. Audrey S. Thackeray

      I applaud your recognition of the importance of unions.

    2. Arctic fox
      Thumb Down

      @AC 20th March 2012 17:31 Re: "if". If the company I worked for was headed up by a guy........

      .............with these opinions:

      "A harsh environment is a good thing", "Hungry people have especially clear minds" and "An army of one thousand is easy to get, one general is tough to find."

      I'd start a frakking trades union, never mind join one.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: if

      If the NHS was allowed to run a BBC Worldwide type operation and generate revenue...

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Ben 50
      Holmes

      Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

      If you're interested, why not look it up....

      The first result I came across (from the BBC) is claiming 41,962 managers. That's one manager to every 40 employees.

      Whenever I've worked for a company with a ratio of around 40+ employees to the lowest rung manager, it's been a f$%£ing disaster. Those Managers have *no* slack to cope with anything "out of the ordinary". I'd say hire more managers.

    2. Audrey S. Thackeray

      Re:Sensible question

      "How many of the 1.7 million NHS workers are directly involved in the fixing and welfare of sick people?"

      In 2009 NHS staff comprised:

      Doctors - 11%

      Nurses - 29%

      Scientific / technical / therapeutic staff - 11%

      Ambulance staff - 1%

      GP practice staff - 5%

      Property and estates staff - 5%

      Central admin / finance / HR etc - 9%

      Managers - 4%

      If you're adding these up as you go you'll find there's 25% missing - these were listed as "Support to clinical staff" - frankly I couldn't tell you if that makes them clinical staff, non-clinical staff or a mix of both.

      Of all of the above I couldn't tell you how many are "skivers", "scumbags" or "ne'er-do-wells", but I'm sure it won't affect your eventual care in their hands if you carry on believing it is the proportion you currently assume it to be.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

      All of those probably do do something useful. Back office and admin doesn't just happen by itself, you know. Scalpels don't fly from manufacturer to warehouse to theatre as the surgeon mutters "Scalpel, swab" to the nurse.

      Learn to recognise the real world and its requirements.

      Or perhaps you're a management consultant...

    4. MOV r0,r0
      Unhappy

      Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

      I've long suspected that the NHS is the employment version of council housing; a post-war socialist gift to the nation for having relatives who were shot at by Germans and Japanese. The health thing is just a cover.

      The left do have difficulty accurately naming things. Rebuilding bits of existing schools with money borrowed from the future? That'll be BSF then.

    5. CmdrX3
      FAIL

      Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

      Well someone has already given some figures for a while ago, but I think you are being highly unfair on the many "pen pushers", "desk jockeys", "IT support staff", etc. I assume pretty much everyone among other things would like their medical records kept in some kind of order, maybe some kind of letter to inform them of their appointments and results, someone to answer the phone perhaps when you ring for that ambulance, someone to repair the medical equipment when it breaks down. Your comment seems to suggest that you feel these sort of jobs are pretty unimportant and unnecessary, and the people that do them are nothing but opportunistic scumbags, whereas personally I think the vast majority do a very good job. I also happen to think that you sir, are a fucking moronic idiot.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

        Stop insulting Lester!

    6. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

      A little under half of them are clinical staff. In BUPA for example, about 7/8ths of them are clinical staff.

      1. Audrey S. Thackeray

        Re: The NHS is the fifth biggest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees

        "In BUPA for example, about 7/8ths of them are clinical staff."

        A link to some figures would be great if you can provide it.

  4. Jeebus

    With the combined wages of less than 50,000 NHS workers.

  5. Tzael

    NHS no more...

    NHS employment numbers will fall dramatically over the next 2 years now that the Lords have passed the NHS reforms bill. End result, many of those employees will be laid off, or transferred to private suppliers of services.

    1. andreas koch

      Re: NHS no more...

      Which will probably raise the 'manager'-to-'actual-healthcare-worker' ratio to 1 for every 20...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Missed a Big one

    I think Indian Railways is the worlds largest employer. AN dif you count ancillary support staff, probably more so!

    1. Darryl

      Re: Missed a Big one

      According to Wiki-World, Indian Railways employs 1.4 million. Of course, WP also says that makes them the world's 4th largest, which isn't true according to these numbers.

      1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge

        Re: Missed a Big one

        A lot of these lists exclude armed forces, which might then make them fourth largest?

        GJC

  7. Chazmon

    Biggest by salaries paid?

    Id be curious to see who are the biggest in terms of salaries paid. I imagine the NHS who employ a high number of skilled people would still be pretty high but the likes of Foxcon and the Chinese army would be somewhat lower.

    Obviously it gets confusing when you take into account top executives because of the various tax dodging schemes such as being paid in shares with only a nominal salary.

  8. Eddy Ito

    Odd counting

    McDonald's isn't a single entity like Walmart is. McDonald's is a franchise consisting of many independently owned shops where all Walmart stores are corporate owned. I'm sure if they added up the total workers of all the private US healthcare facilities it would have also made the list as the NHS did. Hmm, it seems as I just compared the healthcare systems of the US and UK to McDonald's and Walmart without really wanting to. It would be a more fair comparison if McBurgers cost $1000.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fifth biggest?

    Wasn't once the biggest?

    Now overtaken by gadget manufacture, fast food and fighting.

    It's a sad world.

  10. Gordon 10

    Interesting piece on the beeb

    The beeb mentions the Foxconn suicides and notes that the reported suicide rate among their workers is significantly lower than the Chinese average. Now that average is for the whole population rather than the industry and I'm guessing that many more have happened offshift but it does make you think.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/magazine-17429786

    1. Jeebus

      Re: Interesting piece on the beeb

      To be fair, that's because they now have a net to catch the jumpers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Interesting piece on the beeb

        So, has anyone said whether they then extricate the jumpers from said nets, or does starvation/dehydration change the category under which their eventual death is recorded?

      2. Cliff

        Re: Interesting piece on the beeb

        They invested in 1.2M parachutes.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did anyone notice that Apple

    is on track to be the world's largest mobile CPU company? (Last year they shipped 176 million mobile processors compared to Intel's 181 million mobile CPU's). With their homegrown ARM A4,A5 and A5X increase in sales looks like apple will outsell intel in the mobile sector later this year. That's even without last year's rumour about the MBair eventually going parallel ARM which would boost Apple's own CPU's whilst declining intel's x86 share. or not.

    just bought a cheap AMD x64 Foxconn motherboard for a PC chassis - so I'm not adding to either of the two competitors.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Did anyone notice that Apple

      Firstly, whatever CPU family Samsung or Nokia put in their $40 phones will dwarf those numbers. Even at the Series40/Bada level of featurephones, the numbers still exceed Apple's.

      Intel are a minnow in mobile CPUs (mobile does not include laptops), so saying "hey, we beat Intel in moble CPU sales" is like saying "hey, we beat BMW in scooter sales". Compare with Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson or nVidia for a more accurate picture.

      I suspect that the rationale behind the "A(n)" chips was to prevent counterfeiting, rather than to improve system performance. The current crop of SoCs from specialists like Ti, ST-Ericsson, Qualcomm and nVidia seem to be better all round than Apple's chips, but if Apple used those devices in the iOS products, it'd become very easy for Chinese manufacturers to start making iPhone/iPad clones.

      Having your own custom silicon makes things easier in that respect, but it's a stupid move in the long run. Apple have been here before, and realised it was a stupid move before; and I don't mean using 68k/PPC while everyone used Intel (there were solid technical arguments, particularly in power consumption, that made sense), but rather using custom IO and memory controllers when their CPU supplier had perfectly good (and better debugged) parts available.

  12. samlebon23

    Wow 1.2 million slaves to build the theRotten Apple pyramid Empire.

    That's more that Pharaoh needed to raise he built those silly pyramids.

    1. Richard Wharram
      Boffin

      Except

      That there were no 'Pharaohs' until the New Kingdom. They were Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt in the times when pyramids were built (Old and Middle Kingdom.)

      In the New Kingdom they buried themselves (not literally) in the Valley of the Kings, not pyramids.

  13. strum

    Nope

    The "NHS" is composed of hundreds of distinct organisations and companies. This 'largest employer' stuff has always been garbage.

  14. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    Foxconn maybe the world's 10th biggest employer by (live) body count ...

    and by the number of suicides, BUT I bet they are way, way down if their salary bill was used as the unit of comparison.

    They are simply a glorified sweat shop.

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