The death of a Pinduoduo Inc employee has renewed criticism of the long hours commonly practiced at China’s technology companies, which are already under scrutiny by regulators for anti-competitive business practices.
The e-commerce company yesterday confirmed that an employee died last week after working past midnight, without providing additional details.
That sparked a social media backlash against the company and the relentless working schedules expected of its employees.
The so-called “996” office schedule — 9am to 9pm, six days a week, plus overtime — has previously spurred criticism following complaints from employees and deaths.
Technology billionaires, such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder Jack Ma (馬雲) and JD.com Inc founder Richard Liu (劉強東), have endorsed the practice as necessary for survival in an intensely competitive industry and the key to accumulating personal wealth.
The online criticism adds to the challenges for China’s largest technology companies, which spent the past year fending off efforts by Washington to curb their growth, while navigating heightened regulatory scrutiny at home.
Despite that, Pinduoduo emerged relatively unscathed with its shares rising to a record high on Wednesday last week.
The shares ended last year up nearly 370 percent, helping to elevate founder Colin Huang (黃崢) to the position of China’s second-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
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