Overtime triggers heated discussion after workers' deaths

Overtime is worked by staff members at an e-commerce company in Fuyang, Anhui province. As Chinese technology enterprises rose to global prominence, employees with company shares paying annual dividends achieved their first particularly large sums, or "pots of gold"－sometimes as much as hundreds of thousands or even a million or more yuan for individual staff members. Guan Xiaoyu, lecturer at the School of Government at Beijing Normal University, said the success and rapid expansion of Chinese tech companies in the past 20 or so years is based on hardworking employees willing to put in extra hours in exchange for a decent salary and career development. Tang Daisheng, professor at the School of Economics and Management at Beijing Jiaotong University, said that while most companies consider the 996 work schedule as a "hidden rule", some have made it a policy, which clearly violates the Labor Law and puts employees at fault for non-compliance. Tang added that while well-known IT companies offer high-paid jobs to employees, their well-educated and highly-skilled workers are also a blessing to such enterprises, whose development relies on innovative and efficient staff members.