A 23-year-old Foxconn Technology Group employee died in an apparent suicide Wednesday, less than 12 hours after Chairman Terry Gou bowed in apology for at least nine similar deaths at the company's factories in China.
The man, surnamed He, fell from the seventh floor of a Foxconn building in Shenzhen and had stopped breathing when police reached him, according to a Public Security Bureau statement. Initial investigations show the death was a suicide, it said. Edmund Ding, spokesman for Foxconn's Taipei-based flagship Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. didn't answer calls to his phones Thursday.
Gou, the billionaire founder of Foxconn, led media Wednesday on a tour of the company's Shenzhen factories after labor groups said workers toiled under sweatshop conditions. Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Dell said they're investigating working conditions at the company after the deaths.
