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'Developers' Lives Matter': Chinese Developers Protest Over the 996 Work Schedule


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Chinese programmers

Credit: deminvest

Working long hours at a company, devoid of any work-life balance, is rife in China's tech industry. Earlier this week, a Github user with the name "996icu" created a webpage that he shared on GitHub, to protest against the "996" work culture in Chinese tech companies.

The "996" work culture is an unofficial work schedule that requires employees to work from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week, totaling up to 60 hours of work per week.

The 99icu webpage mentions the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China, according to which, an employer can ask its employees to work long hours due to needs of production or businesses. But the extra time should not exceed 36 hours a month. Also, as per the Labor Law, employees following the "996" work schedule should be paid 2.275 times of their base salary. However, Chinese employees following the 996 work rule rarely get paid that much.

GitHub users also called out companies like Youzan and Jingdong, who both follow the 996 work rule.

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