Suicides, iPhones and Numbers

A recent New Scientist article mentioned the problem the company that makes Apple’s iPhones etc had a while ago, where they got into trouble because of a “spate” of suicides among their workers, blamed, of course, on the company.

It went on to say that the number of suicides in the year was 17, and then to mention that the company has over 1 million workers. Other newspaper stories referred to the “problem” factory having 300,000 workers!

But depending on the year, suicide rates in China average about 13-14 per annum per 100,000 people.

The articles don’t mention that. Or they do, but don’t mention the size of the factory. But surely that is the obvious question to ask: is this actually a high suicide rate? And in fact: it is significantly lower than the Chinese average.

Of course demonstrating their usual inability to think, these “high” suicide rates kicked a fuss among the brainless do-gooders in the West. As a result, the factory was “forced” by the public pressure to double salaries. And of course, that made it more sensible to increase automation (the actual thrust of the New Scientist article). So how many workers will now lose their jobs?

I wonder if the bleeding hearts will track suicides among them. Somehow I doubt it. That kind hates any whiff of capitalism. They don’t actually care about human life. After all, if they did, they would support capitalism.