Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer that is a main maker of the iPad, is scrambling to adjust the way it runs its factories in China following a series of suicides by workers that have triggered criticism of its practices.

A 21-year-old employee jumped to his death from a building at the group's largest manufacturing base in Shenzhen on Friday, local police said, marking the 10th suicide bid among Foxconn workers this year and taking the death toll to eight.

“In Foxconn's more than 20 years of history, we've never had anything like this,” Liu Kun, spokesman at the group's China headquarters, told the Financial Times. He also confirmed that the group was reviewing whether its management needed to do anything to help care for its workers.