“The machinery necessary to automate iPhone production can sometimes cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year.”
Apple’s operations chief Sabih Khan reportedly ordered partners to cut iPhone final assembly headcount by up to 50% over the next few years. The push followed violent clashes outside Foxconn’s main plant in November 2022. Apple’s monitored supplier workforce already fell from 1.6 million to 1.4 million in a year. Workers who protest get replaced by machines, and the only thing slowing it down is that the robots botched the iPhone 16 buttons.