Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, is planning to raise wages for its Chinese workers by around 20 per cent after a spate of suicides at its main plant in southern China put working conditions at its factories under international scrutiny.

Ten workers have died at the Longhua plant since the beginning of the year and another employee tried to kill himself on Thursday but survived, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Foxconn, which assembles and makes parts for major electronics brands, has around 20 manufacturing bases employing a total of 800,000 people all over China.

Some of Foxconn’s top customers have said they were looking into working conditions at the manufacturer in response to the spate of suicides.

Sony, which declined to comment earlier this week on the incidents at Foxconn, said on Friday it had begun taking steps to re-evaluate the working environment at Foxconn. Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard have already said they will launch their own investigation into working conditions at the factory.

Foxconn and local police have said there were personal reasons behind each individual case, but labour advocates argue that constant pressure and social isolation have raised the risk of suicides among the workers.

“The raise will be different depending on the location, but it will be around 20 per cent on average,” said Edmund Ding, vice president and spokesman at Hon Hai Precision Industry, the group’s parent company.

Labour activists have appealed to Foxconn to raise wages by at least 50 per cent. They argue that this would allow workers to earn enough to make a living without having to do overtime.

Management and workers at Foxconn’s Longhua manufacturing complex said the company had been considering a pay rise for several months.

Foxconn pays its workers according to China’s legal minimum wage, but most of them make at least double that amount through constant overtime.

The base monthly salary for Foxconn’s production workers at the Longhua plant is Rmb950 ($140), but staff interviewed by the FT said they were making close to Rmb2,000 a month including overtime.