Labour Day holidays in China are almost over, people are coming back to their workplaces. 开工大吉！(Kai Gong Da Ji) People in China say to celebrate getting back to work. Even this fact itself should push our minds to understand the cultural code behind the attitude to work and Labour Day in the country.
Looking at history, Labour Day as we know it originated in the US at the end of the 19th century after a nationwide strike on May 1st. However, Labour Day in China takes its roots from a student-led protest against the government's failure to resist foreign aggression and restore national sovereignty which happened in May as well but on May 4th 1919. Later on with the communist party gaining rule in the country May 1st was declared a national holiday. Today Labour Day is celebrated as a 3-day national holiday with most businesses and organizations closed for the day, many people taking the opportunity to travel, visit family, or participate in cultural events and activities. May 1st is always surrounded by the issues workers face and China is no exception. The pandemic consequences stressed many of the challenges the country has been dealing with and made them even brighter including income inequality, lack of job security, gender inequality, overwork and more.
Have you heard of "996"? If you use any Chinese social media or follow the news from the Mainland you are probably familiar with it or at least crossed it a couple of times. 996 is a working hour system which is 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 6 days a week. You probably think that this is implemented in some factories abusing blue collars. Well, it is mainly implemented in tech companies. Jack Ma of Alibaba once promoted 996 as a blessing. It raised a lot of concern in social media and even was marked illegal by the supreme court in 2021. But it was accepted by many of the workers, maybe not welcomed but it was believed that working harder and more hours can put you ahead of the competition, the narrative many companies use for their advantage.
Although the court stated that a work week should not exceed 44 hours with 36 extra hours that must be compensated, this rule is not well enforced. There is another extremely popular working model of 加班 (Jia Ban) — working extra hours. This is even more common and widespread all over the country. Workers are being motivated to work extra hours, and weekends with rare compensation. Chinese employees are expected to reply to their bosses via their personal WeChat accounts at any time, to be team players and hope for a promotion or just to secure the current positions they work on weekends, follow their leaders to private parties and Sunday motivational "strategic sessions".
This raises another issue that was highlighted by the pandemic — the lack of job security. Many people in China are employed on short-term contracts or as part of the gig economy, which leads to a lack of job security and limited access to benefits such as healthcare and pensions. Losing a job puts a lot of stress as it impacts social security as well: mortgage opportunities, status in the city you moved to, and even school for your children. And after the pandemic, China faced a huge unemployment hit. Well, It all started even before COVID with the general economic slowdown. Then it got hit by COVID and even more by last summer's lockdowns. The total unemployment rate right now is about 6% which is extremely high and if we look at postgraduates it‘s 17%! This puts even more stress on the workers today.
开工大吉 (celebration of getting back to work) perfectly illustrates the paradoxical specifics of the Chinese culture for unaware foreigners. It's extremely important to take such specifics into account operating in China. Moreover, awareness of the labour cultural code may take you ahead of the competition even with the locals. Setting up favourable working conditions you not only advocate for the workers, but can also hire the best talents, motivate them, and get to learn from them which would ultimately benefit your operations.
Looking at history, Labour Day as we know it originated in the US at the end of the 19th century after a nationwide strike on May 1st. However, Labour Day in China takes its roots from a student-led protest against the government's failure to resist foreign aggression and restore national sovereignty which happened in May as well but on May 4th 1919. Later on with the communist party gaining rule in the country May 1st was declared a national holiday. Today Labour Day is celebrated as a 3-day national holiday with most businesses and organizations closed for the day, many people taking the opportunity to travel, visit family, or participate in cultural events and activities. May 1st is always surrounded by the issues workers face and China is no exception. The pandemic consequences stressed many of the challenges the country has been dealing with and made them even brighter including income inequality, lack of job security, gender inequality, overwork and more.
Have you heard of "996"? If you use any Chinese social media or follow the news from the Mainland you are probably familiar with it or at least crossed it a couple of times. 996 is a working hour system which is 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 6 days a week. You probably think that this is implemented in some factories abusing blue collars. Well, it is mainly implemented in tech companies. Jack Ma of Alibaba once promoted 996 as a blessing. It raised a lot of concern in social media and even was marked illegal by the supreme court in 2021. But it was accepted by many of the workers, maybe not welcomed but it was believed that working harder and more hours can put you ahead of the competition, the narrative many companies use for their advantage.
Although the court stated that a work week should not exceed 44 hours with 36 extra hours that must be compensated, this rule is not well enforced. There is another extremely popular working model of 加班 (Jia Ban) — working extra hours. This is even more common and widespread all over the country. Workers are being motivated to work extra hours, and weekends with rare compensation. Chinese employees are expected to reply to their bosses via their personal WeChat accounts at any time, to be team players and hope for a promotion or just to secure the current positions they work on weekends, follow their leaders to private parties and Sunday motivational "strategic sessions".
This raises another issue that was highlighted by the pandemic — the lack of job security. Many people in China are employed on short-term contracts or as part of the gig economy, which leads to a lack of job security and limited access to benefits such as healthcare and pensions. Losing a job puts a lot of stress as it impacts social security as well: mortgage opportunities, status in the city you moved to, and even school for your children. And after the pandemic, China faced a huge unemployment hit. Well, It all started even before COVID with the general economic slowdown. Then it got hit by COVID and even more by last summer's lockdowns. The total unemployment rate right now is about 6% which is extremely high and if we look at postgraduates it‘s 17%! This puts even more stress on the workers today.
开工大吉 (celebration of getting back to work) perfectly illustrates the paradoxical specifics of the Chinese culture for unaware foreigners. It's extremely important to take such specifics into account operating in China. Moreover, awareness of the labour cultural code may take you ahead of the competition even with the locals. Setting up favourable working conditions you not only advocate for the workers, but can also hire the best talents, motivate them, and get to learn from them which would ultimately benefit your operations.
