Apple manufacturers step up hiring in India

ple has stepped up manufacturing in India, to benefit from the Indian government’s Rs 40,000-crore production-linked incentive scheme for smartphones. Both Foxconn and Wistron, that manufacture phones for Apple, have taken on 7,500 workers each since August 2020, when the scheme came into effect. In fact, both Foxconn and Wistron have crossed their investment target for 2021 and increased hiring. Although the second wave seems to have disrupted the hiring process temporarily, with the vaccination drives on in full swing across the country, hiring is expected to resume soon.

That is not all, others, such as Salcomp, Foxlink and Sunwoda that supply components to Foxconn and Wistron, have also begun to hire more. They have already taken on about 5,000 workers in their units. In total, Apple’s partner companies have hired about 20,000 workers in the past year. The hiring will only increase, with Pegatron, yet another contract manufacturer for Apple gearing to set up operations in India. Pegatron is likely to hire at least 6,000 workers once it arrives.

The PLI scheme expects these companies to hire almost 23,000 employees each, by the end of financial year 2022. If it weren’t for the second wave of the pandemic, hiring would have been more aggressive by now. While Apple’s contract manufacturers managed to achieve their FY21 investment target of Rs 250 crore each by a margin, they have been unable to meet their incremental sales target of Rs 4,000 crore owing to the pandemic-induced restrictions and disturbances. The Government of India is likely to accept the request of these companies to declare FY21 as zero year and extend the termination date of the PLI scheme from end of FY25 to FY26 while retaining the outlay, investment and sales targets and incentive structure.