China’s short-video company Kuaishou has formally cancelled its weekend overtime policy, while its competitor, TikTok’s parent ByteDance, is debating internally whether to do the same.
The move by Kuaishou, which raised $5.4bn in a public listing earlier this year, comes as China’s tech sector grapples with employees’ complaints of overwork and mistreatment. In January, the news of two deaths at ecommerce giant Pinduoduo further stirred nationwide debate over the notorious “996” schedule of working 9am-9pm six days a week.
Kuaishou and ByteDance had previously embraced the practice common to many Chinese tech giants, known as “big/small weeks”, meaning that staff work one Sunday every alternate weekend. After half a year of doing so, Kuaishou announced it would end the practice as of this week.