For a while now we’ve been hearing about increased wages for Foxconn employees, in some cases raises of up to 66%. Around here we’ve been wondering how, in an every penny counts environment like consumer electronics manufacturing, they could afford to make anything like that happen. Now we’re starting to see the other shoe drop a little bit as Foxconn announced at a shareholders meeting that they won’t be compensating the families of employees who commit suicide. It was no small amount of money they were paying out, either: ten years’ salary.

They also announced that they will be moving some manufacturing to Taiwan and Vietnam to save some money. Interestingly, Foxconn is officially a Taiwan company operating in China so within these massive city-like manufacturing plant it’s not always clear which country’s laws are applicable.