In Chinese employment law, overtime is any time worked in excess of the time on a 40-hour workweek, or in excess of the schedule approved by the local labor regulator.  In practice, managers in China aggressively demand undocumented and unpaid overtime from employees, which is enabled by untracked time worked on WeChat, resulting in employees working all times of the day. Technology companies are notorious for demanding round-the-clock overtime from employees, and have utilized a variety of corporate culture initiatives to instill a belief among employees that “overtime is glorious.” Nonetheless, local psychologists agree that these initiatives are damaging employees’ physical and mental health, and make it impossible for employees to speak up and advocate for reasonable working conditions.

A notable phenomenon is “996”, which refers to working from 9AM to 9PM, 6 days a week to push overtime to the physiological maximum. China’s labor regulators have issued several declarations that they have lost faith in the business community’s ability to internally ensure their compliance with the law. Plans for hiring more labor regulatory personnel to enforce the law at companies have been announced, and aggressively punish violations in order to protect workers’ rights. Changes in overtime regulatory enforcement are expected to be beneficial to foreign owned businesses operating in China by providing a more level playing field. Western companies in China typically do not have anything as extreme as 996 and do not make breaking the law part of their core business strategy.

Learn more about China’s overtime law here.