<story><title>Chinese authorities say overtime &apos;996&apos; policy is illegal</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-authorities-say-overtime-996-policy-is-illegal-2021-08-27/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>the_cramer</author><text>I once had a chinese colleague who came to europe for a few years. She always thought we were lazy for working so short and every argument i brought up about mental health and work efficiency was met with a: &amp;quot;but it works for us&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;What i did not understand back then is the absolute replaceability of personel in the chinese market. You work long and hard or tomorrow someone else does it.&lt;p&gt;Not only is this a big reason of the economical prowess of china in my opinion, i fear that this work-ethic will come back sooner or later to europe to &amp;quot;stay competitive&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;In the face of bankcruptcy or market pressure... managers tend to make irrational and&amp;#x2F;or unethical decisions. And they will find a way to circumvent the laws.
I am also sure that chinese companies will find a way to circumvent the 996 ruling here.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simonh</author><text>They&amp;#x27;ve swallowed an ideological fallacy that simply working your pants off for long hours means you will win. The USSR had the same disease, if they just worked their people 20% harder than the west did then they would inevitably be more productive and economically &amp;#x27;win&amp;#x27;. It&amp;#x27;s variation of the lump of labour fallacy.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t fall for it. It&amp;#x27;s thinking like this that leads to managers optimising for the wrong metrics. Hours worked is clearly the wrong metric. Companies don&amp;#x27;t exist to simply employ workers for long hours, and thinking that way leads you down the wrong path right from the start. You need to look at where the value actually comes from, and this is sometimes subtle and not at all obvious.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a challenge. A taxi driver in London earns about 4x what a taxi driver in Beijing does, in objective international value terms. Why? What factors might lead to that difference? If your value system can&amp;#x27;t answer that question, then it&amp;#x27;s wrong. They do quite legitimately earn 4x as much because the work they are doing is worth 4x as much, and there must be a reason.</text></comment>
<story><title>Chinese authorities say overtime &apos;996&apos; policy is illegal</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-authorities-say-overtime-996-policy-is-illegal-2021-08-27/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>the_cramer</author><text>I once had a chinese colleague who came to europe for a few years. She always thought we were lazy for working so short and every argument i brought up about mental health and work efficiency was met with a: &amp;quot;but it works for us&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;What i did not understand back then is the absolute replaceability of personel in the chinese market. You work long and hard or tomorrow someone else does it.&lt;p&gt;Not only is this a big reason of the economical prowess of china in my opinion, i fear that this work-ethic will come back sooner or later to europe to &amp;quot;stay competitive&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;In the face of bankcruptcy or market pressure... managers tend to make irrational and&amp;#x2F;or unethical decisions. And they will find a way to circumvent the laws.
I am also sure that chinese companies will find a way to circumvent the 996 ruling here.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stephen_g</author><text>Why would it come back? I don’t think any research has ever shown that working those kind of hours in “knowledge work” is sustainable or conducive to high productivity long-term.&lt;p&gt;I expect the “replaceability” that you mention isn’t just “work long and hard or somebody else will”, but also “work long and hard, because you can be easily replaced as soon as you have a breakdown”…</text></comment>