Many of the children, aged 16 to 18, were required to work overnight and overtime to hit production targets—according to documents seen by The Guardian—which breaches Chinese labour laws. Foxconn said it provides students with employment opportunities, but that it will increase the number of regular workers and review salaries. Amazon said it is investigating the allegations. (The Guardian)

Talking point: Foxconn said in the documents that it turned to hiring students due to its labour shortage and to lower the cost of recruitment; students are cheaper and easier to hire than full-time, permanent workers. And, according to the documents, the company has also lost orders and experienced rising raw material costs as a result of the U.S.-China trade war. This isn’t the first time it’s been accused of illegal labour practices. In June 2018, The Observer found, among other issues, that Foxconn was not paying its workers—who were making Amazon Echo smart speakers and Kindles—overtime rates. This news comes several weeks after Amazon announced it will spend US$700 million to retrain one-third of its U.S. workforce to fill gaps in its own employee base.