China's overtime culture gets worse amid slowing economy

Some say bleak outlook has made it harder for workers to refuse employers’ demands

- Aw Cheng Wei

BEIJING Project manager Sun Wei was looking forward to the Golden Week break when his boss told him two days before the holiday that he had to rush out a proposal.

The proposal was due on May 3, in the middle of the five-day Labour Day holiday.

"He didn't exactly tell me to work over the holidays, but it was just not possible to finish the work if I didn't," Mr Sun, 33, who lives in Beijing, told The Sunday Times.

"I would change jobs, but the economy isn't doing great and there aren't many job offers. So I feel very stuck." China's slowing economy, which has not recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, has made its overtime work culture worse, despite the authorities' moves to tackle the entrenched practice.

Employees in China worked 48.5 hours a week on average in April 2024, according to data released on May 17 by the National Bureau of Statistics. This is up from 46.2 hours in April 2022.

And China's overtime culture is under the spotlight after a Baidu senior executive came under fire recently for saying that her subordinates should be contactable at all hours and not expect weekends off.

In the Baidu case, Ms Qu Jing, the technology giant's media relations chief, was also slammed for being dismissive towards subordinates who declined work assignments for family reasons.

In a video she posted online, since deleted, she railed: "Why should I take my employee's family into consideration? I'm not her mother-in-law.