(Yicai Global) Nov. 22 -- Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., trading as Foxconn Technology Group [TW:2317] (Foxconn), the main supplier of Apple Inc. [NASDAQ:AAPL] in China, has been illegally employing students to work overtime assembling the iPhone X, the UK's Financial Times reported yesterday.

Six high school students aged between 17 to 19 told the Financial Times that they usually work 11 hours per day assembling Apple's new flagship product at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, the capital of East China's Henan province.

Student interns are limited to eight hours' work per day under Chinese labor law. These pupils were among a group of 3,000 students who their local school sent to the factory, telling them that a three-month stint there was required work experience and a prerequisite for graduation. The Zhengzhou factory hires students every year during the August to December production peak as Apple routinely releases new products in September, a long-serving employee with Foxconn intimated, but the need for extra workers was greater this year.

Technical production issues triggered a shortage of the popular iPhone X following its official release on Nov. 3, per Chinese media. Foxconn also reported declining profits in the third quarter, suggesting Apple's emblematic has turned out to be no cash cow for the supplier, which has found itself repeatedly mired in controversy over its allegedly sweat-shop labor practices on the mainland, particularly after a slew of worker suicides in the company's production park in Shenzhen in China's southeastern economic dynamo of Guangdong province.