By Kate Yuan

Apple’s supplier Foxconn may see its plant in central China’s Zhengzhou City resume full production around late December to early January, a Foxconn source told Reuters on December 5.

The company said in a statement that it has started to recruit new employees and was gradually "restoring production capacity to normal".

"If the recruitment goes smoothly, it could take around three to four weeks to resume full production," the source said, pointing to a period around late December to early January.

Zhengzhou plant, the world's biggest iPhone factory, has been grappling with strict pandemic restrictions that have fueled discontent among workers over conditions at the factory.

The factory has nearly 90 production lines and more than 300,000 employees, and takes up 50% of the iPhone output, making it the most important production base. Foxconn could have seen more than 30% of the Zhengzhou site's production affected in November by the unrest.

Apple admitted that the assembly facility for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max in Zhengzhou is operating at significantly reduced capacity because of the pandemic restrictions.