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Chinese company praises employees working 160 hours overtime in a month, sparks backlash
A Chinese company faced backlash for lauding staff who worked excessive overtime, as one employee clocked almost 160 hours in a month.
A Shanghai-based company has come under criticism after publicly praising employees for clocking up excessive overtime hours — with one staff member reportedly working nearly 160 hours beyond his regular schedule in a single month.
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On August 6, Yisai e-commerce Company issued a formal notice commending its workers for what it called their “selfless contributions” through overtime, according to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The announcement quickly went viral on mainland Chinese social media, where many users expressed shock and concern over the excessive workloads.
“Role models for all of us”
“After gathering the data of our workers’ clock-off times at the entrance guard system, we found a group of employees who are highly responsible about their jobs and have made selfless contributions to our company. They are the role models for all of us,” the company said in its notice.
The internal document ranked the top 15 employees in terms of overtime during July. At the top was a staff member who worked 159.96 hours beyond his regular schedule, typically leaving work at 11.12pm. Even the last person on the list had put in 68.41 hours of overtime, usually finishing around 7.56pm.
Company’s justification
Yisai, a sports goods e-commerce company with around 100 employees, mostly born after 1990, officially lists its working hours as 8.30 am to 5.30 pm on a recruitment platform. Despite this, the company urged other staff to “learn their spirit of loving the job and making a selfless contribution.”
An anonymous manager defended the practice, telling local media that the busiest department, operations, often required extra work. “We do not force workers to do overtime. Sometimes, workers do extra hours voluntarily,” the manager said. “If the company assigns them to work overtime, workers can receive overtime pay. But if they do it out of their own initiative, there is no overtime pay.”
It remains unclear how much of the overtime was officially mandated.
SCMP reported that under special circumstances, overtime should not exceed three hours in a single day, with a maximum of 36 hours per month.
