JD.com founder Richard Liu, in a recent video conference with his office staff, added a warning to his words of encouragement: His company has no room for anyone who wants work-life balance.
“We have employees who like to enjoy life, who put life first and work second. I understand that you don't want to work hard, and everyone has their own choice. So I can only say that you are not our brothers, but just passers-by,” Liu told those in attendance, according to an audio recording posted on social media. “We shouldn't work together.”
Liu said the Chinese e-commerce group will step up efforts to weed out IT engineers who work hard and don't deliver results, and will reward employees who do a good job.
The warning is not unusual: Facing a new reality of slow growth, tougher competition and investor disinterest, China's tech executives are seeing many cut staff and make tougher demands on those who stay.
Chinese engineers have never enjoyed the benefits offered to their Silicon Valley counterparts, who have on-site perks like doctors and sushi bars. Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, famously told employees that the tech industry standard of 996 hours (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week) was a “blessing.” But the long hours have improved in recent years under President Xi Jinping's “shared prosperity” campaign, which aims to reduce income inequality and promote equality.
Now, amid stagnant growth and falling stock prices (the market capitalization of China's top five listed technology companies has fallen by a combined $1.3 trillion from its 2021 peak), executives are returning to the leaner, more energetic days of startups.
In a recent video conference with staff, JD.com founder Richard Liu added a warning to his words of encouragement. ©Billy HC Kwok/Bloomberg
Some in the industry see e-commerce group Pinduoduo as a role model. Last year, Shanghai-based Pinduoduo made profits of RMB60bn (£6.5bn), the equivalent of RMB3.4m for every 17,000 employees – three times Tencent's productivity and nine times that of Alibaba.
This forces Pinduoduo staff to work long hours; three years ago, two employees died in what colleagues concluded was overwork. One former employee said the hours were so long during her two years with the company that she basically gave up “any social life, hobbies or even a romantic life.” “After I left, I felt like I was reconnecting with society,” she said.
Pinduoduo said it is a “dynamic, fast-paced company” and is “committed to providing its employees with a positive and productive work environment.”
Industry pillars Alibaba and Tencent have cut tens of thousands of employees since 2021 to boost their own companies' efficiency, and Tencent executives acknowledged that they were adding “low-cost talent” — typically younger workers — when they were hiring.
A Tencent employee in Guangzhou, China, takes a nap during his lunch break. © Qilai Shen/The New York Times/Redux/eyevine
Ding Wenhua, who recently left ByteDance-owned TikTok, said avoiding unemployment felt like playing a game where the platform you're standing on keeps randomly shrinking and you have to jump around to avoid falling off. “There's always this feeling that you might get fired, and everyone feels pretty nervous and anxious.”
New euphemisms mask the pain: Companies talk about “optimizing” their workforce, and employees tell friends they're “graduating” or getting a “big gift” from their employer — being fired with a severance package.
The upheaval has hit older tech professionals, typically over 35, the age group where the threat of layoffs is greatest and the job market is toughest. Bosses often see workers over 35 as more expensive and less willing to put in long hours because of family commitments. “It's never been this hard to find work,” said an infrastructure engineer nearing 40 who was recently laid off by ride-hailing company Didi.
Jenny Chan, an associate professor of sociology at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, added that tech companies are “looking for younger, unmarried talent in big cities with flexible hours, while firing older, less 'competitive' talent. For those with families, the work-life conflict is acute.”
Last year, recruitment platform Lagou and counselling service Yixinli conducted a work-related survey of 2,200 professionals working in major Chinese cities, finding that 60% were worried about uncertain career development prospects, and 44% were concerned about a lack of work-life balance.
“A lot of people in this industry experience some level of depression, and the pressure on us is huge,” said one TikTok employee in China, who said she has been on and off medication for mental health issues. Because TikTok operates globally, the work is never done, she said. “We often have meetings in the middle of the night.”
The 31-year-old said she found more stressful than the long hours was the strict corporate culture at TikTok's parent company ByteDance, which she called “neijiao,” a term widely used in China to describe the ruthless competition to outdo peers.
Biao Shan, a social anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute, said the word, which translates as “degeneration,” is growing in popularity in China as workers connect personal insecurity with broader change. “There's no absolute increase in opportunities because the overall economy isn't growing,” Shan said. “What can we do? We can only squeeze more and more out of ourselves and out of our workers. We can only intensify our efforts without generating any real benefits.”
For many in China, comments made last month by Baidu's vice president of public relations, Qu Jing, symbolized what Nei'e might be like. In a series of short videos posted online, Ms. Qu lashed out at expectations of staff, such as accompanying them on business trips that lasted for a month or more.
“If you don't want to be on the road with me for 50 days, if you want to go home, don't come asking for a raise or a promotion,” she said in one video. She added that she told her staff they had to be on call at all times, and didn't care if the work affected their personal lives. “I'm not your mom,” she said. “All I care about is results.”
After Qu's short video went viral in China, Baidu fired her and said her opinions did not reflect the company's culture.
But tech workers who spoke to the Financial Times said they saw Mr. Qu's attitude in bosses who expected work to always come first: Dedication was a prerequisite for promotion, they said, and they often enforced working hours by requiring employees to swipe in and out.
“Even if you're on vacation, you still need to respond to messages,” Ding said. “You'd better show up to any meetings you're supposed to be in, otherwise it's going to be a huge hassle.”
The Tencent Games developer agreed that he often finds himself immersed in his work: “On the outside, I appear very calm,” he said, “but the pressure is intense, and we are like cogs grinding away until we run out of oil and break.”
“If I don't have to work overtime on the weekend, I'll stay home for two days so I don't have to talk,” he said, blaming the situation on Neijuan and a lack of independent trade unions.
Tencent, ByteDance and JD did not respond to requests for comment.
Yet for many Chinese, tech remains the best place to work. New graduates are drawn to companies that are relative meritocracies, where hard work and good performance lead to social mobility. The sector is one of the best-paying jobs in the country, especially as Beijing pressures financial institutions to cut employee salaries. “The reason I stay here is simple: the salary is high,” says a TikTok employee. “It's a place where ordinary people can get opportunities through hard work.” Companies also typically offer perks like free meals and on-site gyms.
Tech workers have protested against long hours and made some progress.
Last year, programmers organized a campaign against the industry standard of 996 hours. The campaign became known as “996.icu” – a play on the saying that your work schedule ends with admission to intensive care. They organized it on GitHub, beyond the reach of Beijing's censors.
The anti-996 campaign briefly won sympathy in state media. In 2021, China's Supreme Court declared Schedule 996 illegal as President Xi Jinping cracked down on figures like Ma. The victory came at a price: Authorities detained three labor activists involved in the campaign and sentenced them to two to five years in prison.
A worker monitors a computer in a command center at online retailer JD.com's headquarters in Beijing. Tech workers have shown some opposition to long hours. © Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Technology workers report that while Monday through Friday work hours are still long, most companies no longer expect employees to regularly work in the office on Saturdays.
But faced with China's fiercely competitive technology industry, employers remain motivated to push employees harder.
Li Ming, a technology founder, said he was thinking about how to get his small team to work harder, and complained that some employees left work before him every night.
“On the one hand, I understand that employees leave work at 7:30 every night because they have to get home to their families. On the other hand, I want my employees to work until 9 or 10,” he said. “That's what our competitors are doing. If we don't do that too, how will we survive?”
*Names of technology experts have been changed
Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding and Kai Warszewski
