More employees of Apple’s manufacturing suppliers broke the company’s rules on working hours and overtime last year, as it raced to overcome production delays and meet initial demand for the new iPhone X. Compliance with Apple’s working hours policy fell from 98 percent in 2016 to 94 percent in 2017, according to the company’s annual Supplier Responsibility report. The tech giant found 44 serious breaches of its compliance rules in 2017, including dozens of instances of bonded labour and falsifying working hours as well as two cases of underage workers, according to the report. During 2017 three Apple suppliers had foreign contract workers who had been charged recruitment fees – a form of bonded labour described by UN agencies as modern-day slavery. “In one case, over 700 foreign contract workers were recruited from the Philippines to work for a supplier through a private employment agency,” the company said. The company said it returned $1.9 million in “excessive recruitment fees” to more than 1,500 employees last year.

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