It started with a single Tencent game studio. After that, it was Kuaishou’s turn. Then, after a week, ByteDance and Meituan’s grocery division. After years of public condemnation of the “996 culture,” three prominent Chinese computer businesses have eliminated weekend work in the recent month. (None of these businesses operated on the 996 schedule, which runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.)
The change coincides with a vogue for tangping—“lying down,” a dropout style. Some young people, at the very least, are looking for alternatives to the corporate rat race.
“Why 996 simply won’t go away,” we wrote the last time we wrote about overwork in this column. Is the situation improving? Is it time to start fantasizing about working for a Chinese tech giant and, just maybe, having a life?
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