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Foxconn recruiter: We're 'hiring' for June release of iPhone 5

The latest iPhone 5 report quotes a Foxconn recruiting official saying that the company needs to hire 18,000 people to make the iPhone 5.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

A Foxconn recruiting office is telling potential hires that the iPhone 5 is expected to go on sale in June, according to a Japanese broadcaster.

In a conversation recorded here by TV Tokyo and aired April 2, a Foxconn recruiter says the company needs to hire about 18,000 people to manufacture the iPhone 5.

"Because it seems it will go on sale in June," the recruiter says in response to a question about the iPhone 5, according to a Japanese translation of the original Chinese. (That conversation starts around the 7:10 mark.)

This wouldn't be the first time that a report points to a summer release of the next iPhone. A January report hinted at a summer release and a subsequent rumor cited an analyst at Daiwa Securities.

The TV Tokyo broadcast was a broader report about Japan Display, a company formed by the merger of the display businesses of Hitachi, Sony, and Toshiba. Japan's once-dominant flat-panel industry has been reeling from stiff competition from Korean and Chinese display manufacturers.

Google Translation of a summary of the TV Tokyo broadcast here.

Via Macotakara

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