With reports in Taiwan that the companies were recruiting staff in preparation for building the iPhone 7 series, Apple’s top Taiwanese suppliers have started mass-hirings.

“Foxconn Zhengzhou is hiring a large number of ordinary workers. Welcome to join Foxconn: Age between 18-40. Overall monthly salary: 3,800 renmimbi. Start working immediately,” says one of the job advertisements that was posted on the company website of Foxconn for its Zhenzhou, China, factory.

When one opened up the details of the job advertisement, one comes across a potential warning from the company. The company states that the company’s jobs hotline may be busy because “so many applicants are dialing in” and the advertisement goes on to encourage the potential workers to “hurry to apply”.

“Please call a few times more and wait in patience. We will get back to you and make arrangements accordingly,” it reads.

Pegatron, an Apple supplier, and Foxconn, which is also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, had ramped up hiring as they prepared to assemble the newest model iPhones, reported Taiwan’s Economic Daily News on Tuesday.

There is a fixed time of the year that both these Apple suppliers tend to start a recruitment drive. The news paper report noted that unlike even in the last year when the recruitment drive by the two suppliers had been started sometime in June or July, this year, the two suppliers have kicked off their recruitment seasons at least a month earlier than in previous years.

The report also noted that the previous years when the suppliers had launched an aggressive recruitment program were the years that Apple had come up with a new version of iPhone. Moreover, this is also the first time in two years that Foxconn had started recruiting on the mainland as early as May.

Very recently Macworld.co.uk recently reporting that Apple was expected to launch an iPhone 7 as well as an iPhone 7 Plus that could possibly be called the iPhone Pro. The above recruitment drive by the two very important supplier companies of Apple have raised suspicion that the company is in the process of something big.

September is the month that Apple had chosen for the launch of both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6S Plus in the last two years and this month, these recruitment drives and some media reports have resulted in heating up of suspicion about the release of an iPhone 7 series of phones.

There have been several other news reports that have pegged the release of iPhone 7 in September this year.

Suppliers needed to start work on the new phone’s parts earlier than on previous iterations, reported the Economic Daily News, stating that the design of the new iPhone 7 was more complex in nature than previous models. This meant that the assembling staff would require more training than previous to prefect the process.

Foxconn and Pegatron did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

(Adapted from CNBC)

Categories: Strategy