Apple is now offering monthly updates to its Supplier Responsibility website (http://macte.ch/5q8dr), tracking efforts to reduce extreme overtime hours worked among employees of Apple’s manufacturing partners, as reported by “Daring Fireball” (http://macte.ch/Xtlya).
“In our effort to end the industry practice of excessive overtime, we’re working closely with our suppliers to manage employee working hours,” notes Apple. “Weekly data collected in January 2012 on more than 500,000 workers employed by our suppliers showed 84 percent compliance with the 60-hour work week specified in our code. In February 2012, compliance with the 60-hour work week among 500,000 workers at those suppliers increased to 89 percent, with workers averaging 48 hours per week. That’s a substantial improvement over previous results, but we can do better. We will continue to share our progress by reporting this data on a monthly basis.