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FORTUNE.COM // JUNE.1.19
China’s Slowdown
Explains ‘996’
Chinese tech firms are pushing their workers
into incredibly long hours. A slowing economy
is to blame. By Eamon Barrett
CHINA HUSTLE CULTURE,^ the top-heavy work/
life balance favored by Silicon Valley
elites, is under review. Even in China, where hustle
has a different name, previously tireless tech
engineers are rebelling against the exhausting
expectations of their jobs. On GitHub, the
Microsoft-owned forum where tech developers
share code, a post from an anonymous Chinese
user recently criticized the so-called 996 work
schedule China’s techies endure—slogging away
from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. “If you work
996, you’ll be in the ICU sick,” wrote the user,
adding, “Developers’ lives matter.”
Smartly billing itself as a legal rather than a
political gripe, the GitHub post says 996 culture
contravenes China’s labor laws, which mandate a
workweek of 44 hours with overtime capped at 36
hours a month. On a 996 schedule, workers burn
through most of their month’s overtime allowance
in under a week. Few are justly compensated.
“The reason why the 996 protests arose now is
because China’s In-
ternet industry, which
had been continu-
ously growing at very
high speed for the
past decade, is feeling
the stress of the econ-
omy slowing down,”
says Li Chen, a social
sciences professor at
the Chinese Univer-
sity of Hong Kong. In
2017 the economy en-
tered a “new normal,”
with annual GDP
increases slowing
to 6.6%, compared
with decades of 7% to
10% growth. People’s
Daily, a newspaper
aligned with China’s
ruling party, called
the legitimacy of
a 996 workweek
“clearly questionable”
and said it should be
reviewed. But that
unofficial support
might not manifest as
government policy.
by the
numbers
MEASLES
$21
The CDC’s contract
price for a pediatric
measles, mumps,
and rubella (MMR)
vaccine in 2019.
$75
The private sector
price for a pediatric
MMR vaccine.
U P T O
$142,000
Cost of responding
to a single case of
measles, according
to a paper in the
Journal of the
American Medical
Association
839
CASES IN 2019
SO FAR
In 2000 the disease
was considered
eliminated in the
United States.
—ERIKA FRY
*COST VARIES ACCORDING TO
THE NUMBER AND LOCATION OF
CONTACTS THAT MUST BE TRACED,
THE AMOUNT OF POSTEXPOSURE
PROPHYLAXIS THAT MUST BE
ADMINISTERED, AND THE NUMBER
OF PEOPLE QUARANTINED.
CL
OC
KS
:^ V
CG
VI
A^ G
ET
TY
IM
AG
ES
;^ V
AC
CIN
E:^
JU
ST
IN^
SU
LL
IVA
N—
GE
TT
Y^ I
MA
GE
S
