Downward angle icon Downward angle icon. Chinese tech workers face pressure from their bosses to perform better. CFOTO/Getty Images Bosses at Chinese tech companies are pressuring employees amid growing competition, the Financial Times reported. They are emulating Silicon Valley, where bosses have stepped up pressure and fired employees. Don't expect the pressure to ease even as China's economy stagnates.
Silicon Valley bosses responded to the crisis by putting pressure on their workers, and now Chinese tech bosses seem poised to do the same.
Mark Zuckerberg, Andy Jassy and other CEOs have relied on layoffs, return-to-office mandates and other “efficiency” policies over the past two years to counter investor selling, worried that tech companies were getting bloated during the pandemic and distracted by “fake jobs.” They hoped to show markets that their companies could still make big profits and form the backbone of the economy with leaner operations.
About 363,000 workers have been laid off since January 2023, and many employees have suffered from increased workload and burnout. But their bosses have been rewarded.
Meta's Mark Zuckerberg said the layoffs were part of an era of “efficiency.” The company's market capitalization rose from about $300 billion to $1.26 trillion after it announced it would lay off 13% of its workforce in November 2022. Other Silicon Valley companies have seen similar turnarounds.
China is squeezing tech workers harder
Chinese tech companies appear to be trying to take Silicon Valley's philosophy of efficiency even further.
This is according to a new report from the Financial Times, which noted that Chinese employers are increasing pressure on workers after the market capitalization of China's top five technology companies has fallen by about $1.3 trillion since 2021.
For example, veteran business leader Richard Liu, who heads Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, recently told staff on a video call that employees who “prefer to enjoy life” are “not our people” and “we shouldn't work together,” the Financial Times reported on Monday.
This isn't the first time Liu, whose company's shares have fallen by about half in 2023, has offered harsh words to employees about the company's direction. “We need to change, or there's no way forward for our company,” he told staff in an internal memo in December, Bloomberg reported.
The main reason for this atmosphere is competition.
Chinese tech giants such as JD.com and Jack Ma's Alibaba face threats from fast-growing startups like Pinduoduo, a sister company of online marketplace Temu, which has been criticized by groups including China Labor Watch, a nonprofit focused on Chinese labor rights, for its “extreme overtime” culture.
Jack Ma, co-founder of tech giant Alibaba. Wang HE/Getty Images
As the Financial Times report points out, employees are increasingly using the term “nei na,” which translates to “internal war” and describes the extreme pressure to outdo competitors and the increasingly small teams they work in. Ma's Alibaba, for example, cut about 20,000 employees last year.
China's tech workers have long been accustomed to aggressive labor policies.
During their growth period in the 2010s, some Chinese technology companies introduced the so-called “996” work system, which requires employees to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, starting at 9 a.m.
The policy was previously advocated by Chinese business titans such as Ma Ying-jeou. Though these harsh working patterns have faced increased restrictions from Beijing, business leaders are not giving up on their efforts to find new ways to exert pressure on workers in a new period of crisis.
A video posted on Chinese social media last month showed Qu Jing, head of public relations at internet giant Baidu, outlining expectations for employees, including preparing for 50 consecutive days of business travel.
“All I care about is the outcome,” she said in one video.
Qu left Baidu after his comments were made public, but the anger heard among China's tech workers has not subsided.
As long as China's economy remains stagnant and competitors scramble for consumers, those hoping to work in China's tech sector may have to keep following their bosses' orders.
