It might not be Santa’s Workshop, but Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier, Friday said it now employs more than one million Chinese workers to build iPhones and iPads. The factory expects to have 1.3 million workers by the end of 2011.
The added workforce is designed to meet extra demand on the Taipei-based company, China’s largest private employer. Foxconn’s CEO told Bloomberg: “everybody is working hard.”
Some of those new workers likely will be assembling the new iPad 2.0, expected sometime in early 2011. Foxconn reportedly will begin shipping in February between 400,000 to 600,000 of the updated tablets. At the same time, production of the original iPad will fall to between 1.6 million and 1.8 million units. The new iPad reportedly will begin sales in April.