2021 Chinese Young People's Overtime Work Report: Beijing can only rank third
The city with the most overtime work, Beijing can only rank third
This is a report from the OH! YOUTH WeChat public account about overtime work for young Chinese in 2021.
Many netizens have dubbed 2021 the first year of "anti-involution." This year, big companies such as Bytedance, Kuaishou, and VIVO have successively cancelled the big and small weekly system and bid farewell to the "996" working mode.
"Overtime or not" is a good way to gauge involution for young people in the workplace. Do you often get off work on time this year? Do you have to work a lot of extra on weekends and holidays this year? Do you have to deal with work on a regular basis when you get home from work this year? How has overtime affected your body and mind this year?
36kr recently conducted a small survey for young people on "overtime work," and a total of 4,279 friends from all over the world responded, sharing their "overtime work experience and opinions with us."
1. Over 70% of young people often work overtime
To combat the growing culture of overtime, a group of programmers started the "996.ICU" project in 2019. Is the overtime situation still bad two years later?
According to the report, there is still a lot of overtime two years later. The percentage of young people who work extra hours every day and on a regular basis has risen to 76,1 percent. Only 6.9% of young people say they never work overtime.
Many young people who are greatly oppressed by working overtime are claimed to find solace in this. When I become a leader, my monthly pay will be increased, and I will no longer have to work extra.
But the "truth" we discover is that the higher the income, the more overtime is required.
The proportion of regular overtime work in workplaces with a monthly salary of more than 30,000 individuals has reached 86.3 percent. As a result of this, you must first work overtime in order to get wealthy!
2. Internet, finance, and law are the top three industries with the most severe overtime.
There are 360 lines, and all of them work overtime. Overtime appears to have become a daily norm in life for young people at all times and in all places.
The Internet industry, in particular, must be ranked first on the list of the most cruel overtime industries.The financial and law industries are at second and third place, respectively.It is said that financiers and lawyers never work overtime because there is no difference between going to work and leaving get off work.
*"Frequent overtime data" comes from the sum of the respondents who "never leave work on time" and "occasionally leave work on time"
Do you work a lot of overtime in your field of work?
“No programmers do not work extra hours. I frequently work extra at the company until 1:00am, then return the next day at 9:00am to continue fixing bugs. Later, I commuted to work in 15 minutes and tried to be "on call 24 hours a day."
@Too exhausted to work
"The company's accounting post, is always assigned time-consuming and urgent closing responsibilities. I frequently work overtime till the crack of dawn at the end of the year. I recently had a room in a neighboring hotel on my own expense, because otherwise my body would be completely overwhelmed. All of this is tolerated. The most exaggerated claim is the six days of overtime work on this year's national holiday."
@Unstoppablewind.
“If the performance is not accomplished, our sales department is required to work overtime till ten o'clock. You will die painfully the next day if you leave quietly. I've tried and I was feeling very bad.”
@OversizedBeauty
3. Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Beijing are the top three cities with the greatest overtime work.
Before the survey, we thought that young people in Beijing and Shanghai worked the hardest overtime. Shenzhen has never struck us as a highland for young people to work extra. Other cities are "younger brothers" in comparison to Shenzhen when it comes to working overtime.
Even Chengdu, called the "leisure capital," was not exempt from the top ten.
* The data sample only includes first-tier and new first-tier cities.
4. Only 10% of young people never work overtime after returning home from work
Since 9 to 5 and getting off work on time is a pipe dream. At the very least, young people won't have to work any more hours after getting home, right?
You might be let down once more.
Only 10% of young people never work overtime after getting home from work, according to surveys. The majority of young people can only silently leave the office with their computers and proceed to the second stop of overtime - home.
Simultaneously, we discovered that the younger the workforce, the less willing they are to work extra in the workplace. If overtime is inevitable, it looks that Gen Z would prefer to work from home.
5. Over 60% of young people work overtime due to emergencies
Employee's working overtime on weekends, statutory holidays, and annual leave are all over the place, as are subways, picturesque sites, and pubs. So, why do young people put in extra hours?
Over 60% of young people work overtime because of "emergency", followed by "superior's sudden assignment of tasks" and unfinished work during the day."
Is it "the workload is too much" or “laziness throughout the day”? Young people may be the only ones who know this.
Furthermore, we discovered that overtime pay, transportation subsidies, and late-night refreshments are among the reasons why some young people work overtime. After all, it takes advantage of the company.
“In the past when I was a Beijing drifter, overtime was a matter of course in the eyes of the leaders. On weekends, there were even emergency conference calls to criticize us. On a Saturday night, leader was yelling during a conference call. When I hung up the phone, I burst into tears and wanted to leave immediately. In the three and a half years in this big tech, more than half of the weekends would be occupied. It is common to arrive at the company at 8:30 and get off work after 21:00/22:00 in the evening. There is no vacation or overtime pay.”
@leyue
“The department was awarded the company's "Light Keeper" title, and the leader asked colleagues who worked overtime after 2 a.m. to take a Vlog record.”
@Lights
“Rarely need to work overtime. Most of the time I work overtime because my girlfriend doesn't get off work, and it's boring to go back alone.”
@87
“The leader counts the clock-in time every month, no matter how much overtime that person works, he often talks to the last person who works overtime. Do you think I dare not work overtime?”
@465
“The former 14 people in the department were later laid off to 7 under the guise of "improving human efficiency". What to do, it all depends on overtime. Later, colleagues left one after another, and now it has been changed for two rounds.”
@smile
“Overtime is too late, and the online car cannot be called. Once I worked overtime until 4 am, and I had to arrive early for work the next morning, so I simply slept on the company sofa. I also dare not tell my colleagues and leaders for fear of being considered ineffective.”
@Player
6. Only 10% of young people dare to "do not respond to work messages after leaving work."
"U Can U BiBi" had a workplace debate on whether to respond to work messages after work, which sparked a lot of debate at the time.
The affirmative, represented by Xue Zhaofeng, believes that a reply is needed, because the current mental work makes it difficult to completely separate work and life. Liu Qing, who represented the negative, believed they should not respond. The world should do everything it can to eliminate those poor options.The eight-hour day is a step forward. People aren't merely calculators for cost-benefit analysis.
Although everyone is arguing on the Internet, the reality is another story.
According to our actual survey, only 10% of young people dare not reply after work.
10.4% of young people choose to reply to messages in seconds, and 75.3% of young people choose to "reply when they see it".
At the same time, we also found that the older the working person, the faster the reply message after getting off work.
The proportion of post-95 workers who "reply to news in seconds" accounted for 8.79%, while the proportion of post-70 workers accounted for 27.3%.
To a certain extent, this data also shows that the "35-year-old crisis" and "40-year-old crisis" are so real.
7. Over 60% of young people believe that working on a company's team qualifies as overtime.
By today's young people, team building is regarded as a form of material and spiritual suffering. Li Xueqin, an influencer, expressed something that captures the ambitions of many young people: being forced to participate in various group activities that do not appear lonely but do not cure the inner loneliness.
So, is the team building happening when you get off work an overtime or a welfare? According to our survey, more than 60% of young people believe that team building after work is overtime.
In short, it is not necessary to do team building. If a team building is needed, the superiors can do so during the working day. It should be the very last resort for most young people to engage in team building activities without devoting time to relax.
8. Nearly 80% of those born after the year 2000 are willing to work extra hours for money.
Are you willing to work overtime if you are paid well for it?
When confronted with this form of mental torment, 65.98 percent of young people stated their willingness to accept it. However, 16.5 percent of it young people "keep to the bottom line", that is, working overtime is impossible even though with providing money. In this life, working overtime is impossible.
Furthermore, we discovered that younger employees are more inclined to take paid overtime. Taking the post-00s who have recently entered or are about to enter the workforce as an example, the post-00s who are "ready to work overtime for money" make up 79.6% of the group.
I have to admire the fact that youth is the most valuable asset. However, we would like to warn everyone that while working overtime, you should pay greater attention to your body.
“We usually leave work around 7:00, and after working overtime until 9 pm, we begin to take time off. 7-9 pm is a time of selfless commitment. The first time is 50, the second time is 100, and the third time is 150 in the accumulated deduction process. Selfless dedication does not earn money, but it is removed for being late for overtime every day.”
@Reincarnate into a different class
“Because some coworkers "don't want extra compensation but are willing to work overtime," the boss believes that it doesn't matter if they don't pay overtime hours because there will always be people willing to work overtime for free.”
@Jane
“Working overtime for a firm's major project would help not only the corporation, but also the employees, who will receive greater welfare benefits, which are complimentary things. However, if the corporation draws a large cake, it is uneasy; after all, most companies are the latter.”
@Popo
“For three months in a row, I worked overtime till two in the morning. On the walk home, I had the sensation that my entire body was floating and that my heart was racing. But when I saw the year-end bonus later, I realized it was all worth it. Unfortunately, there is only one sickness in the world: poverty. I can do whatever I want on Syria's ruins if I have enough money.”
@Isanewbie.
9. More than half of young people are physically and mentally tired and depressed due to overtime
Overtime is the equivalent of staying up late. There may be no consequences at first, but they will become obvious with time.
According to our survey, 71.31 percent of young people lost personal time and space as a result of overtime, and they were both physically and mentally weary. 52.8 percent of young people are depressed and don't want to go to work because of extra work, and 471 percent of young people don't get enough sleep and aren't feeling well.
Working overtime makes 33.6 percent of young people want to quit, and 2.7 percent of young people have no time to find a mate.
Which of the "overtime sequelae" listed above did you get?
“Overtime is consuming my time. I was smoking downstairs when I ran into a new coworker from the next department. He inquired what I loved to do after work, and I suddenly realized that, aside from having a bath and sleeping after work, I didn't have time to do what I liked.”
@Nicomakdisklikelearning
“There are simply subsidies and no overtime pay on working days. Colleagues have been yelling all day that they want to resign on the spot, but they are becoming more involved. M-type baldness, greasy skin, and drowsiness. On weekdays, I get up to go to work and then go to bed after I come home and sleeping for two days on weekends is a major issue.”
@Hiddenaway
“Last year, from September to November, I worked overtime. I woke up at 4 a.m. every day and returned home at 12 a.m. every night. Later, I stayed up till my heart was in pain. In the end, I only gave a 1,000 yuan compensation. I'm most frightened of the physical test right now, and I'm embarrassed to tell my family how much strain a Beijing drifter is under or how uncomfortable I am, since I'm afraid they'll be concerned.”
@G2-
“On the way home from an overtime taxi, I felt a sharp pain in my chest and had difficulty breathing. The driver was promptly sent to the nearest hospital for emergency treatment, and a minor rescue (electrocardiogram, infusion, oxygen, and magnetic resonance imaging) was done in the emergency room.”
@joanne
10. Please keep these 5 suggestions for "escape" from overtime work.
This group of young individuals try hard to "fight overtime" in order to get off work on time and enjoy the "benefits" that workers should have.
To that purpose, OH! YOUTH has collected and summarized 5 ideas for not having to work overtime based on reader contributions.
①Bring the computer home and act as if you're working overtime.
②Don't turn off the computer and act as if you haven't gone anywhere.
③Not responding to leadership work messages
④Sneaking to the restroom
⑤leave the work mobile phone in the company
“As a company legal officer, I firmly refuse to let other departments go and refuse to work extra, regardless of whether the work is accomplished or not. Dingding at five o'clock reminds you to leave work. Colleagues said that when they saw me getting up, they realized it was time to leave, and others joked that they would never catch up with me when I left.“
@Superman must learn to fly.
“For the first month at the new company, I worked overtime every day. Later, I resolved to boost my work productivity by leaving at 6 p.m. As a result, within a week, I was approached by the leader, who advised me to "work overtime if necessary, and perform well throughout the probationary term."
@Lee
“Don't bring a bag, leave your coat at the office, install office software on your notebook and mobile phone hotspot, stay online, and slip away.”
@Xierqiwithouttears.
“On time, I headed to the company's internal gym to exercise. First, I haven't completely departed, and second, I've turned this portion of the time into personal time for my body to workout and sweat. The leader is generally gone after exercising and having a bath, and I can walk home without incident.”
@Jiangnan
As the phenomena of involution has progressed, the 9-to-5 business has become increasingly obsolete, and no young person is unfamiliar with the term "overtime."
Although everyone is rejecting 996 online, they can only accept overtime quietly at work. A big portion of the reason, in addition to the overtime generated by low efficiency during the day, is that the leader temporarily assigns work, regularly holds meetings throughout the day, or the leader does not dare to leave, temporary meetings, etc.
Even if these objective circumstances are difficult to change, we do not encourage young people to change jobs frequently (you will find most companies do the same), but it does not mean that we should be "indifferent" to overtime.
You should increase your "workplace bargaining power" in addition to more effective and reasonable scheduling of weekly and daily tasks. You will have greater confidence when you have stronger muscles and perform better at work. You will also have greater confidence to refuse some unjustified overtime work.
Similarly to Ma Dong's summation, "Will you respond to work messages after you leave work?" problem, "The most important thing in our lives is to take care of ourselves, and don't forget poetry and the distance." Our saddest is that not satisfied with the present and ignore poetry and the distance."