China's labor-intensive industries have been rapidly shifting toward jobs-killing automation in recent years, with a world-leading 16 percent rise in industrial-robot sales last year alone. Now, a new official estimate has put a spotlight on some of the effects of these investments in China's electronics-manufacturing center. Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., more commonly known as Foxconn, has shed 60,000 workers at one factory alone, according to a recent report in the South China Morning Post. Foxconn is most famously known as Apple's largest contract manufacturer, which has faced criticism over the treatment of its workers and for a string of worker suicides. "The Foxconn factory has reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots," Xu Yulian, spokesman for Kunshan city, told the Post.

The figure comes from a local government official, who said employee numbers at one of Foxconn's factories in Kunshan, near Shanghai, have been drastically slashed in recent months. Foxconn is headquartered in Taiwan, but has 12 factories in China, where it produces popular devices like the iPhone and iPad, along with a number of others. The official told the South China Morning Post: "The Foxconn factory has reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots. It has tasted success in reduction of labour costs." "More companies are likely to follow suit," the official added.