CHILD LABOR

Chinese Schoolchildren Working Overtime to Build Amazon Alexa Devices: Report

A new report alleges Chinese children as young as 16 are working overnight to meet Amazon’s Alexa production demands.

Chinese schoolchildren as young as 16 are being required to work nights and overtime in Foxconn factories to meet production demands for Amazon’s Alexa “smart speaker” devices, according to a new report by The Guardian based on leaked documents and interviews. The pupils have been recruited from schools and technical colleges in and around Hengyant in southern China, according to the report, and are classified as “interns” rather than workers. It is legal for factories in China to employ 16-year-olds, but not to assign them night shifts, according to the report. Foxconn, which also makes Apple products including iPhones, said it was checking into irregularities. A spokesperson for Amazon told The Guardian they were checking into the matter. “We are urgently investigating these allegations and addressing this with Foxconn at the most senior level,” the Amazon spokesperson said. “Additional teams of specialists arrived on site yesterday to investigate, and we’ve initiated weekly audits of this issue.”