Shuyan Yan (PO ’23)
In Zhongguancun, a well-known tech hub in Beijing, China, there is a joke circulating that if a billboard falls on 10 pedestrians at midnight, 8 of them might be software engineers, and the other two must be program managers.
In the Chinese technology industry, many sarcastically joke about working overtime, and seeing employees leaving office buildings at midnight is not unusual. Despite Chinese labor law legally stipulating that “laborers shall work for no more than eight hours a day and no more than 44 hours a week on average,” overworking has been pervasive in many Chinese tech companies for years. For example, “996”, a well-known moniker referring to employees working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week, is a very common practice. Alarmingly, there are many variants of “996” such as “11-11-6” (working from 11 am to 11 pm, 6 days a week), “995”, etc.
The phrase “996” is not new, its first use could be traced back to 2000 when a Huawei employee grumbled about his working experience on Douban (a Chinese discussion forum). The prevalence of overwork culture in China has a lot to do with the technology industry’s fast-paced development over the past decade as the technology sector experienced rapid growth in China. Driven by enormous opportunities as well as high competition in this sunrise industry, many technology companies sprung up and were keen to launch products to gain market share as fast as possible. Despite the hiring spree and large job vacancies in this industry, employers could not hire employees fast enough to meet their demand. As a result, they started to force employees to work longer so as to keep pace with the fast working environment. In return, employees could get much higher payments. Companies also motivated employees to work longer as a way of practicing a “hard-working” spirit. Since then overwork culture has gradually soaked into all kinds of tech companies including big companies and small startups, and “996” has become an unspoken rule.
In 2014 “996” began to pick up steam, but only in 2019 did these silent grumbles burst into a large online protest. In 2019, an anonymous user on Github initiated an online movement “996, ICU”, to protest against these draconian working hours. He complained that these extreme working hours were a shortcut to getting employees into hospital intensive care (ICU). The protests received wide attention, hot discussion as well as support from a group of GitHub and Microsoft workers in the United States. Nevertheless, some Chinese tycoons defended this working hour. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, posted on Weibo (a Twitter-like Chinese social media) in support of 996, “workers should consider 996 “a huge blessing” to “achieve the success [one] want[s] without paying extra effort and time.” Richard Liu, CEO of Jingdong, another giant Chinese e-commerce tech company, blamed those who complained about the 996 as “slackers.”
In 2019, as the hiring spree started to slow and China started to see lower valuations for startups and shrinking venture capital funding, tech companies were facing more challenges and competitive pressures. This only encouraged the predatory practices of tech companies and perpetuated the “996.” Keeping staff working “996” means having fewer people doing the same amount of work, so companies can hire fewer people and pay less salaries. While companies could not force employees to work “996” for them as it is against the law, they would assign a large number of tasks to employees and ask them to finish in a short period. This required employees to work overtime, and if they were not willing they faced potential termination. With the hiring freeze at its peak and there being one job for every thirty engineers, employees were extremely afraid of losing their jobs. Moreover, with inflated housing prices, living in large cities has become more and more expensive. Burdened by the high living costs, many Chinese youths are willing to accept “996” to get higher salaries, even though it means sacrificing their personal lives.
Studies have shown that long working hours can have detrimental effects on one’s physical and mental health. Overworking can even allay a worker’s productivity and may not be as effective as employers think, but can also lead to tragedy. On December 29th of 2020, two days before the new year at 1:30 AM a 22-year old Chinese female suddenly fell unconscious on her way home after working long hours for Pinduoduo, a large Chinese e-commerce company. After 6 hours of treatment, she died.
This is not the only tragedy we have seen. Chinese governments have been silent for years about this brutal work schedule and many people have been using “996” as an excuse for economic developments. However, seeing so many tragedies of people losing their lives from working incessantly for tens of hours, it’s time for the government, employees, and employers to take action against it and to realize the significance of work-life balance.
To combat this problem, the Chinese government needs to enforce the labor law and bring the issue to the forefront of the political agenda. Take its neighbor, Japan, as an example. Japan has had a similar problem for a long time, and to tackle it the Japanese government passed the new Work Style Reform Bill in 2018. In the bill, it sets a maximum for working hours and requires employers to allow employees to have more flexible working environments. The Chinese government can learn from that and investigate companies that do not observe the regulations. From the employer’s side, employers should change the company’s evaluation system, evaluating the employees based on how efficiently they can finish the tasks instead of how many. Moreover, employers should allow employees to have more flexible working hours, just as tech firms in silicon valley do. Lastly, there should be more open discussions about overwork culture in Chinese social media, and the government needs to intervene to make sure that the movements against 996 such as “996-ICU” are not censored on big platforms by the tech firms. People should work hard for a better life, but not to take their lives.
