(Translated by DeepL and I revised something)“996” seems to be tied to China and I saw a person who spoke weird chinese and said he was chinese at Lemmygrad today said “all Chinese people work 12 hours”, so I thought I would let everyone at Lemmygrad know what I saw in China. Everything I am about to say is only my experience, but I thought it would be informative. The rush hour in my city is between 7.30am and 9am, and between 5.30pm and 7pm, which is also the most crowded time for buses and subways. At 9pm, on the other hand, there are hardly any traffic jams and the buses and subways are almost empty. I think this is proof enough that most people don’t work until 9pm. Of course, it is undeniable that many people in China also work twelve hours a day. So who works 12 hours? “996” was first brought to light in internet companies. Voluntary overtime is legal, but it is illegal if employees are forced to work overtime. And overtime needs to be paid. One area in Beijing once banned overtime by coercion, forcing work to stop at 6pm every night. But this measure was opposed by a large number of employees because they wanted overtime pay. Some people want to work overtime, then some people are against it, and in this case some reluctant employees may start to work overtime of their own accord for fear of not being able to compete with those who are willing to work overtime. This is a tricky issue that perhaps needs to be addressed by better laws. In addition, many workers at the lower end of China’s manufacturing sector also work large numbers of twelve-hour days. China produces a lot of industrial goods for the world to use, and it is constantly being exploited by the developed world on the world market. This manifests itself in the fact that workers in a developed country can buy the products of more labour in a less developed country for less labour. Now focusing on the currency, such factories have very low profits and find it difficult to pay their workers very well. These factories usually offer free accommodation and food, but the wages are not very high. You can choose to work eight or twelve hours. Salesmen for various products, such as insurance salesmen. As far as I know insurance salesmen work very free hours and they usually have to work weekends and 9pm. This is not because they work twelve hours a day, but because it is when people are off work that insurance salesmen can sell their products. Construction site workers usually finish work at 6pm and are usually paid over four hundred yuan a day in my city (they are usually paid on a daily basis), which is higher in China. When I commute on the bus every morning, the passengers in the carriage are mainly construction site workers, so I know better. In short, forced overtime is illegal. Allowing voluntary overtime may “kidnap” some employees, but this needs to be improved by better laws rather than simply banning overtime. A company should not dismiss an employee for refusing to work overtime, but should pay compensation if the company has no legitimate reason to dismiss the employee.

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