Underage workers used: Foxconn

Labour rights activists in China have accused Foxconn and other big employers in China of using student interns as a cheap source of labour for production lines where it is more difficult to attract young adult workers to lower paid jobs.

Foxconn, the trading name of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, said it had found some interns at a plant in Yantai, in northeastern Shandong province, were under the legal working age of 16. It did not say how many were underage.

Our investigation has shown that the interns in question, who ranged in age from 14 to 16, had worked in that campus for approximately three weeks, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

This is not only a violation of China's labour law, it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions, it said.

Foxconn is Apple Inc's largest manufacturing partner, and also makes products for Dell Inc, Sony Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co among its other clients. It said the Yantai plant does not make Apple products.

Foxconn made the announcement after investigating Chinese media reports of underage interns among its China workforce of 1.2 million. It said it had found no evidence of similar violations at any of its other

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