According to a company’s report on audit of 102 supplier facilities conducted in 2009, Apple Inc. said that it found more than a dozen serious violations of labor laws or Apple's own rules at its providers that required immediate amendment.

In 2009, questions about the practices of one of Apple's suppliers came into spotlight after the suicide of a Chinese worker who held a sensitive job handling iPhones. He was working for the Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese manufacturer that has long been one of Apple's key suppliers.

Apple, along with many other technology companies, depends greatly on foreign contractors to build its products. Monitoring their labor practices is difficult, and Apple has been pressured in the past on this issue.

The company said in its latest report that "by making social responsibility a fundamental part of the way we do business, we insist that our suppliers take Apple's code as seriously as we do".

There were three cases of underage workers being hired, eight examples of workers paying "recruitment" fees that were above the legal limits in those countries, three cases in which suppliers used non-certified vendors to dispose of harmful waste, and three others in which the companies gave false records during the audits.

In 2006, Apple found that workers in a Chinese iPod factory were in many cases surpassing the company's limits for overtime. Apple had ordered the factory to comply with its limits.