The sudden death of Chinese tech worker due to overwork has triggered a furore in the country, with many raising voices against the return of the toxic ‘996 culture’.
The 25-year-old reportedly died soon after he was admitted to a hospital from his home on Saturday afternoon, The Guardian reported.
The video platform Bilibili, where the man was working as a content auditor, said company representatives went to the hospital to assist and then notified his family.
The incident triggered outrage in China’s social media platforms after it merged that the man, who had worked throughout a week-long public holiday, died of a brain haemorrhage.
However, the company defended itself saying that the 25-year-old, whose name is yet to be revealed, had been working from 9.30 am to 6.30 pm for the past week, with no overtime.
“The death of this excellent worker is not only an enormous loss to the company, but has also served as a wake-up call to us,” Bilibili said in a statement.
“We should make active improvements in checking up on the physical health of employees to prevent similar tragedies from happening again,” it added.
On Monday, social media platform Weibo was buzzed with the hashtag “Bilibili worker” on Monday when a workplace blogger reported the man’s death, citing anonymous colleagues claiming that he was forced to work overtime, reported AFP.
The same day, a Weibo user claiming to be the man’s sister wrote a long post thanking the blogger and alleging that Bilibili tried to suppress news of his death internally.
“Is it that hard to give a sincere apology? Does my brother’s twenty-something-year-old life not count?” she wrote, in a post that gained over 870,000 likes.
According to Chinese law, businesses should not allow their staff to work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week, and overtime is restricted to 36 hours a month.
But several Chinese companies still operate through the ‘996’ work mode, where it is expected from the employees, especially in the tech industry, to work from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week.
The expectation has in the past been promoted by high-profile figures including the Alibaba founder, Jack Ma.
(With inputs from agencies)
