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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.
CLOCKS: VCG VIA GET T Y IMAGES; VACCINE: JUSTIN SULLIVAN
—GETTY IMAGES
