Worried about iPhone 14 Pro shortages for Christmas, Foxconn comes up with a Hail Mary play

We've been telling you that Foxconn's largest iPhone factory located in Zhengzhou, China has been locked down by the Chinese government due to its zero-COVID policy. With assembly line workers leaving the facility in droves (confirmed by several videos posted on social media), production has been affected leading Apple to admit that "We now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products."

To rebuild its headcount, which was seriously decimated by the exodus out of Zhengzhou, CNN says that Foxconn is now offering bonuses for workers who recently left the facility's campus. The announcement of the bonuses was posted on one of the company's WeChat accounts. This is an important time of the year for Foxconn since the holiday shopping season will soon be underway and the contract manufacturer usually runs its lines all out in an attempt to produce enough phones to cover demand.

On its Zhengzhou worker recruitment WeChat account, Foxconn wrote, "The epidemic has disrupted our work and life, but… the company has achieved milestone results in the current epidemic prevention measures. The production and living order of the park has been restored to normal gradually."

Those workers who left Foxconn between October 10th and November 5th will receive a one-time bonus of 500 yuan ($69) if they return to the factory. New workers will be paid 30 yuan ($4) per hour.

When the Chinese government instituted the lockdown, Foxconn also made its own changes forbidding staff from eating in the dining room and forcing them to eat in their dormitory. Last Wednesday the Chinese government initiated a seven-day lockdown in the manufacturing zone that includes the Foxconn factory. Foxconn's WeChat post said that as soon as the "district-level lockdown is lifted" workers will be able to start working.

Once the lockdown ends, Foxconn will pick up workers who want to come back along with new workers and drive them to the factory where they will work, live, and eat in a closed-loop system. The big question is whether enough former Foxconn workers will be enticed by the bonus to come back and manufacture the number of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max units needed to keep up with the holiday demand.