"Worker shortages may see forced labour spike in tech supply chains,"

...

[China, India & Vietnam's] positions as manufacturing titans have remained that way for many years, but something has shifted. The young people that bosses relied upon to handle the strenuous manual tasks now have smartphones, connecting them with the wider world and allowing them to see a better life for themselves...

To try and prevent their young workforce from slipping through their fingers, factory bosses have had to dig deeper into their pockets.

Wages in the sector have more than doubled over the last decade in both China and Vietnam. They are also providing more benefits... as well as modernizing their factories... Many large corporations, like Nike, Hasbro, and Mattel, have reported rising costs due to the labor shortage...

But there is a dark underbelly to this industry. Instead of tempting new recruits with benefits, there have been reports of forced labor throughout the electronics supply chain, from the mining of raw materials to production. Individuals, including children, work for long hours and low pay in dangerous conditions, and find themselves unable to leave due to threats or violence from their superiors.

Countries that dominate in electronics manufacturing, like China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan, often have weaker labor laws and don’t enforce them strongly...

The problem has only been exacerbated over the last year. Along with labor shortages, electronics manufacturers are struggling with supply chain issues, and inflated energy & raw materials prices associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine...

Tech giants like Google, Apple, and Sony are shifting production to other countries, including India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, and The Philippines, which have lower labor costs and a higher risk of forced labor...

The key to tackling the issues of forced labor is supply chain transparency, but achieving this is not a simple endeavor for tech companies. This is because the elements that make up semiconductors and other intermediate components change hands up to hundreds of times before reaching the distributing company.

However, new legislation and import bans are making it harder to get away with this ignorance...

Some corporations take individual responsibility for their supply chains by conducting audits and inspections of suppliers, working with suppliers to improve working conditions, and investing in traceability technologies that enable them to track the journey of raw materials and components...

However, the median score of all the 60 companies analyzed for the KnowTheChain benchmarking report, which represents their efforts to address supply chain forced labor, was just 14 out of 100.

According to the authors, this reveals “abject failure by most to demonstrate sufficient due diligence to identify forced labor risks and impacts in their supply chains, or take adequate steps to address them”. At the same time, the efforts of Hewlett-Packard and other front-runners prove it is possible to do so while remaining profitable...