SRIPERUMBUDUR, India (Reuters) - Apple ( AAPL ) supplier Foxconn has ordered the hiring agents that help recruit iPhone assembly workers in India to remove age, gender and marital criteria as well as the manufacturer's name in job advertisements, according to three people familiar with the matter and almost a dozen ads reviewed by Reuters.

The moves follow a Reuters investigation published June 25, which found that Foxconn excluded married women from jobs at its main India iPhone assembly plant, though it relaxed the practice during high-production periods.

Foxconn, which employs thousands of women at the iPhone factory at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, outsources recruitment of assembly-line workers to third-party vendors. These agents scout for and screen candidates, who ultimately are interviewed and selected by Foxconn.

For the June story, Reuters reviewed job ads posted by Foxconn's Indian hiring vendors between January 2023 and May 2024 which stated that only unmarried women of specified ages were eligible for smartphone assembly roles, contravening Apple ( AAPL ) and Foxconn anti-discrimination policies.

Days after the story's publication, Foxconn HR executives instructed many of the Indian vendors to standardize recruitment materials in accordance with templates provided by the company, two of the three hiring agency sources told Reuters. They also told the vendors not to speak to the media, these people said. 

At a meeting in late June, Foxconn HR executives cited media coverage of the company's hiring practices and "warned us not to use Foxconn's name in any ads going forward, and told us our contracts would be terminated if we did," one agent said. 

"The instructions for ads were: Don't mention the unmarried requirement, don't mention age, nor male or female either," said the person, who like the other sources spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of backlash from Foxconn.

Foxconn did not respond to Reuters questions about its directives to recruiters, nor whether it had ended restrictions on the employment of married women for iPhone assembly roles. Apple ( AAPL ) declined to comment on similar questions. Both companies have previously said that Foxconn hires married women in India.

Reuters could not independently determine whether Foxconn had begun to hire greater numbers of married women for the roles in question. But recent changes to advertising content aligned with the recruiters' accounts.

One new Foxconn template ad reviewed by Reuters described smartphone assembly positions but made no mention of Foxconn, nor age, gender or marital criteria. It listed benefits: "Air conditioned workplace, free transport, canteen facility, free hostel" and a monthly salary of 14,974 rupees, or about $177.

In October, Reuters visited Sriperumbudur and reviewed nine Foxconn vendor ads, some in the Tamil language, that were posted on walls and circulated on WhatsApp. The text matched the template provided to the vendors.

While the ads didn't identify the employer, two of the three vendor sources said they were for Foxconn smartphone assembly positions.

"Foxconn gives us the ads to run for hiring. We only use those," a manager at hiring agency Proodle told Reuters. 

Reuters visited the offices of 12 Foxconn hiring vendors, eight of which declined to discuss its practices. 

One vendor, Groveman Global, had advertised in 2023 for unmarried women aged 18 to 32 for mobile manufacturing jobs. This language was absent in three new Groveman ads that Reuters reviewed last month.

A representative at Groveman's office declined to comment on the changes.

Apple ( AAPL ) has been positioning India as an alternative manufacturing base to China amid tensions between Beijing and Washington. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government views Foxconn's iPhone factory and Apple's ( AAPL ) broader supply chain in India as helping the country move up the economic value chain.

Following Reuters' earlier story, Modi's government ordered federal and state investigations into hiring practices at the Foxconn plant.

Labor officials visited the facility in July and interviewed company executives, but neither Modi's government nor state officials in Tamil Nadu made the findings public. The state government rejected a Reuters request for a copy of the investigation report made under India's Right to Information Act, citing confidentiality.

Federal and state officials did not respond to Reuters questions about the outcome of their probes of Foxconn.

Dilip Cherian, a communications consultant and co-founder of Indian public relations firm Perfect Relations, said media scrutiny of Foxconn's employment practices had necessitated changes to job advertising because of the reputational impact on the company and its client, Apple. 

Still, it remained to be seen "whether this move represents a real change of heart or just a cosmetic and appropriately legal response to the fact that they have been called out," added Cherian, who told Reuters he does not work with Apple ( AAPL ) or Foxconn.

During a visit to India in August, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said married women "greatly contribute to the efforts of what we're doing here." 

He also met with Modi, who said on X at the time that the pair discussed the Taiwan-headquartered company's investment plans in India.