Chinese authorities say overtime '996' policy is illegal
I wonder if this will be good or bad for the competitiveness of China if they are able to enforce it.<p>The company I work in now has no problem competing with Chinese companies working 996, despite us working 7.5h days and having way more vacation days. I believe part of that is that working longer hours doesn&#x27;t necessarily make you more productive, as has been discussed in tech communities for a while now.<p>The thing is, to be productive with shorter working hours requires a very different culture. The company I work in now has a very flat structure, and people are encouraged to work on side projects that can improve productivity, and there&#x27;s a focus on continuously improving methodology. The last company I worked for was Chinese-American (based in US, but 99% Chinese working there), and it was the exact opposite. Decisions on what to work on was made top-down and results were mainly achieved through brute force. Although since we worked in a somewhat independent office in Europe we ended up with a hybrid system.<p>So the question is, will a shift away from 996 lead to a shift in work culture that increases productivity, or will they just work fewer hours with the same culture?<p>That seems to be the problem for the CCP in general. They want to make improvements, but they don&#x27;t really get to the root of the problem. They crack down on after-school tutoring for instance, but they don&#x27;t change the Gaokao system, so tutoring will just go underground.