New Delhi: Claims that another Chinese tech worker has died after excessive overtime has reignited debate over the industry’s “996 culture”, The Guardian reported.
The company denied that it overworked the employee, but said it would pay more attention to the health of its employees.
The 25-year-old reportedly died in hospital soon after he was taken to hospital from his home on Saturday afternoon. The video platform Bilibili, where the man was employed as a content auditor, said company representatives went to the hospital to assist and then notified his family.
Bilibili released an internal memo rejecting claims the employee — who reportedly died of a brain haemorrhage — was overworked. It said the man had worked from 9.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. for the past week, with no overtime, the report said.
But reports of his death by a workplace blogger on Monday renewed heated discussion about a toxic overtime culture dubbed ‘996’ — referring to an expectation that employees, especially in the tech industry, work from 9am to 9pm six days a week. The expectation has in the past been promoted by high-profile figures including the Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, The Guardian reported.
A hashtag related to the man’s death and including the allegation of overwork trended on Weibo, receiving hundreds of millions of views, including accusations the government had not done enough to address the problems in the year since a spate of high profile deaths linked to overwork in 2020.
