Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou has become a hot topic in the tech industry as of late because of comments he reportedly made likening employees at the manufacturing plants of his company to animals.

The report detailing Gou’s comments comes from Want China Times.

According to the publication, the Foxconn chairman said this in a recent meeting with company executives: “Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.”

Gou apparently also said that he would like to learn from Chin Shih-chien, director of the Taipei Zoo, about things he could do to manage animals.

Reports do say, however, that Gou might have been teasing when he made the remarks and that some meaning may have not been carried over right from the translation.

Meanwhile, Want China Times also reported recently about a protest from Foxconn employees who threatened to kill themselves by jumping off a building.

The employees, who had numbers running into the hundreds, were threatening suicide at the Wuhan factories of the company because of wages they were negotiating with Foxconn.

Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou equates his workforce to animals in latest comments. Image: jaci XIII / Flickr (CC)

Last May, a blast at a Foxconn plant in Chengdu, Sichuan, China reportedly killed at least two workers working there.

Foxconn is most famous for assembling iPhones and iPads for Apple.

Its factory in Henan province in China is set to the world’s biggest smartphone assembly plant once expansion plans of the company for the facility has been completed.

Foxconn has also been previously reported to be looking into replacing its workforce with robots.

The company has also been talked about in the past because of reports saying that work conditions in its facilities are terrible.

Foxconn under its parent company Hon Hai, which is the world’s biggest contract consumer electronics manufacturer, also makes consumer electronics devices for Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.

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About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .