When China Says It’s Too Much, We Should Listen
October 30, 2025
Bottom Line Up Front:
China learned the hard way that 996 kills people and destroys productivity. They banned it after workers died and public outrage forced government action.
America is learning the same lesson, but we’re doing it voluntarily, one burnt-out worker at a time. We’re sacrificing the health, happiness, and lives of workers to chase AI dominance and satisfy venture capital demands.
We’re not innovating. We’re importing a work culture so toxic that even the country that invented it had to make it illegal.
And we’re calling it “the future of work.”
Most of us have done it. On a very limited scope. Not as part of our every day work. Things happen. In IT that usually means pressure and downtime, loss of productivity sometimes on a massive scale. So, we suck it up and get it done. But not as a daily regular work practice. Not 365.
In August 2021, China’s Supreme People’s Court made history by ruling the “996” work schedule illegal. The decision came after several high-profile deaths of tech workers. Young people literally working themselves to death. The court was unequivocal: “Workers deserve rights for rest and vacation…and adhering to the national working hour system is the legal obligation” of employers.
Fast forward to October 2025, and American tech companies. Particularly, AI startups who are eagerly embracing the same schedule that China deemed so dangerous it had to be outlawed.
Let that sink in. We’re importing a work culture that was banned in the country that invented it. And we’re doing it voluntarily.
What Exactly Is 996?
The “996” work schedule refers to working from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, six days a week. That’s 72 hours per week. 80% more than the standard 40-hour workweek Americans are accustomed to.
Under Chinese law, employees are limited to 8 hours per day and 44 hours per week, with overtime capped at 36 hours per month. The 996 schedule grossly violates these limits. When a parcel delivery worker named Zhang refused to work these illegal hours and was fired, Chinese courts ruled in his favor, awarding him compensation and explicitly stating that 996 “seriously violated the provisions of the law.”
In the United States, we have no such protections. And Silicon Valley is taking full advantage.
The Ironic Rise of 996 in America
The shift is undeniable. According to October 2025 reports, approximately 25% of AI startups now use some form of the 996 schedule. Data from Ramp, a corporate expense platform, shows a marked increase in weekend takeout orders on corporate cards in San Francisco this year. A telling indicator that tech workers are increasingly working Saturdays.
Companies aren’t even hiding it anymore. Rilla, an AI startup in San Francisco with just 80 employees, explicitly states in job postings: “If you’re not interested in working more than 70 hours a week, this job isn’t for you.” The company’s head of growth told reporters that his generation, Gen Z, grew up idolizing founders like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and they’re willing to sacrifice work-life balance to build “life-changing companies.”
Adrian Kinnersley, a recruitment expert, confirms the trend is accelerating: “It’s becoming increasingly common. We have multiple clients where a prerequisite for screening candidates before they go for an interview is whether they are prepared to work 996.”
Some companies are taking a different approach. Fella & Delilah, a telemedicine company, offers employees a choice: stick with the standard schedule, or opt into 996 for a 25% salary increase and 100% equity boost. About 10% of their employees have accepted. But here’s the cruel math: a 25% pay increase for 80% more work hours means employees are actually earning less per hour.
Why Doesn’t US Law Protect Workers from 996?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most tech workers have zero legal protection against 996-style schedules.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), most tech workers are classified as “exempt” employees, meaning they’re exempt from overtime pay requirements. To be classified as exempt, employees must:
- Be paid on a salary basis
- Earn above a minimum threshold ($684/week or $35,568 annually as of 2025, after courts blocked a planned increase)
- Perform certain “executive, administrative, or professional” duties
The vast majority of software engineers, systems analysts, and other computer professionals meet these criteria. In California, the threshold is higher ($118,657.43 annually as of 2025), but the exemption still applies.
What does this mean in practice? If you’re classified as exempt, your employer can legally require you to work 60, 70, or even 80 hours per week without paying you a single cent of overtime.
When AI startups put “996” clauses in employment contracts, they’re not breaking any federal labor laws. They’re taking advantage of the fact that the law treats tech workers differently than hourly workers. An exempt employee earning $85,000 per year working 72 hours per week is actually making less per hour ($22.68) than if they worked 40 hours per week ($40.87).
Some states offer slightly better protections. California requires higher salaries for exemption and has stricter rules about duties. But even in California, once you meet the exemption threshold, there’s no limit on how many hours you can be required to work.
The system assumes that highly-paid professionals have the leverage to negotiate fair working conditions. But as the 2022-2024 tech layoffs demonstrated, when 500,000+ workers lose their jobs, leverage evaporates. Workers accept 996 schedules because the alternative is unemployment.
China recognized this power imbalance and banned 996 as illegal. America calls it “being in a startup.”
Why It’s Happening Now
Between 2022 and 2024, more than 500,000 tech workers were laid off. Just in October 2025, companies including Rivian (4.5% of workforce), Meta, Paycom, and NBC News announced significant cuts. The layoffs create leverage for employers and anxiety for workers.
As University of Washington history professor Margaret O’Mara explains, tech has always had a “California casual exterior and workaholic interior.” But the recent shift is different. It’s a direct response to changing economic conditions. During the pandemic, workers had bargaining power and could push back. Now, employees are “grateful just to have a job.”
The AI race adds fuel to the fire. With $104.3 billion invested in AI startups in just the first six months of 2025, the pressure to turn those dollars into profit and market share is immense. Companies fear being left behind by competitors. Especially Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek, which recently developed models rivaling OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
British venture capitalist Harry Stebbings openly advocates for going even further than 996, suggesting that building a $10 billion company requires “007”. Working midnight to midnight, seven days a week.
The Health Costs: What China Already Learned
China didn’t ban 996 on a whim. The policy came after years of worker deaths and public outcry. The 996.ICU movement, which started on GitHub in 2019, took its name from the grim reality: “By following the ‘996’ work schedule, you are risking yourself getting into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).”
The health impacts are severe and well-documented:
Physical Health:
- Employees working more than 11-hour days face significantly higher risk of heart-related issues
- Those working over 54 hours per week face elevated risk of “karoshi”. Death from overwork
- A 2013 survey found that 98.8% of Chinese IT workers reported health problems
- More than 75% of urban tech workers in major Chinese cities suffer from work-related fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, sleep disorders, and eating disorders
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease (21% increase), stroke, and Type 2 diabetes (84% increased risk)
Mental Health:
- Burnout (chronic workplace stress with energy depletion and emotional exhaustion)
- Depression and anxiety affecting work performance and personal life
- Empirical studies show 996 culture indirectly influences psychological distress through job burnout among young workers
- Over 50% of tech workers experience depression or anxiety in 2025
Productivity Paradox: Studies consistently show that after about 50 hours per week, output per hour drops significantly. A 2021 study in the Kansas Journal of Medicine found a “significant inverse relationship” between worker stress and productivity. Workers become less productive over time, not more, yet companies continue to demand longer hours.
The Economic Waste: Jobs We’re Not Creating
Here’s a simple calculation that reveals the magnitude of the problem:
- 996 schedule = 72 hours per week
- Standard full-time = 40 hours per week
- Difference = 32 extra hours (80% more work)
If one person is working 72 hours doing what should be done in 40 hours, that’s 1.8 jobs being done by one person. Nearly one additional job could be created for every person currently on a 996 schedule.
According to Chinese labor law analysis, if companies complied with the 44-hour workweek mandated by law, employment could increase by as much as 30% in affected industries.
In other words, the 996 culture isn’t just destroying workers’ health, it’s also eliminating hundreds of thousands of potential jobs at a time when entry-level workers are struggling to break into the industry.
The Broader Employment Crisis in Tech (2025 Data)
The 996 schedule is just the most visible symptom of a much larger crisis in American tech employment. Here are the ten major issues crushing workers in 2025:
1. Entry-Level Job Crisis
What it is: A paradoxical situation where companies refuse to hire graduates without experience, but graduates can’t get experience without being hired.
Class of 2025 Numbers: The graduating class of 2025 faces one of the toughest job markets for new graduates in over a decade:
- Unemployment rate for recent college graduates (ages 22-27): 5.8% as of March 2025 (highest since 2021)
- For context, the overall US unemployment rate is just 4.2%—meaning new grads are worse off than the general population for the first time since 1980
- 41.2% underemployment rate in March 2025 (working jobs that don’t require their degrees), up from 40.6% in 2024
- Hiring plans collapsed: Employers initially planned to hire 7.3% more Class of 2025 grads, but by April that dropped to just 0.6% increase
- 11% of employers plan to reduce hiring overall
- Internship postings down 11 percentage points from 2024 levels
- Average hiring rate for May-June 2025 is 44% lower than 2022 and 16% down from 2024
Tech-Specific Data:
- Big Tech companies reduced hiring of new graduates by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023
- The share of hires with little work experience at large-cap tech companies plunged more than 50% between 2019 and 2024
- At startups, new graduate hiring dropped more than 47% over the same period
- Startup recruitment decreased by 11%
What Students Are Experiencing:
- 56% of Class of 2025 graduates feel pessimistic about starting careers in the current economy
- 75% worry about the economy impacting their job prospects
- 64% believe it will be harder to secure entry-level positions due to AI
- Some grads report applying to 200+ jobs with minimal interviews
- Many are moving back in with parents, working part-time gigs, or taking jobs unrelated to their degrees
The data reveals a cruel catch-22: entry-level positions have essentially vanished, but mid-level positions require experience you can’t get without an entry-level job. Meanwhile, Big Tech increased hiring by 27% for professionals with 2-5 years of experience—they want the workers they laid off, not the students they encouraged to major in CS.
2. Burnout Epidemic
What it is: A state of chronic workplace stress leading to physical and emotional exhaustion, characterized by energy depletion, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness.
2025 Numbers:
- 82% of employees are at risk of burnout in 2025
- In the United States specifically:
- 72-77% of US workers have experienced burnout at their current job
- 44% of surveyed US employees feel burned out at work
- 45% feel “emotionally drained” from work
- 51% feel “used up” at the end of the workday
- Burnout among US workers hit a six-year high in October 2025
- 74% of Gen Z workers suffer from at least moderate burnout (highest of any generation)
- Globally:
- 79% of UK employees feel close to burnout (82% in tech specifically)
- 52% of tech workers experience depression or anxiety
- 22% of engineering leaders face critical levels of burnout
- 24% report moderate burnout
- 57% of tech workers are currently experiencing burnout
- 42% of tech workers might quit within the next 6 months
- Nearly half (47%) of young workers aged 18-29 report their job has negatively affected their mental health
- 76% of employees experience burnout at least occasionally
- 28% feel burned out “very often” or “always”
- Healthcare and tech industries have the highest burnout rates at 42% and 38% respectively
The World Health Organization has officially recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon requiring medical attention, listing it in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).
3. Toxic Workplace Culture
What it is: Work environments characterized by harassment, discrimination, bullying, lack of psychological safety, and normalized abusive behaviors.
2025 Numbers:
- 45% of employees agree that recent layoffs have intensified a climate of toxicity
- 45% say toxic work environment is impacting their mental health
- 46% suffer from burnout because of toxic workplace culture
- 49% of surveyed employees don’t speak up when faced with toxic behaviors or situations
- 42% worry their career would be negatively impacted if they talked about mental health concerns
- Nearly half worry about being judged if they share mental health struggles with colleagues
- Only 13% told their manager their mental health was suffering from work demands
- One in four employees have considered quitting due to mental health concerns
- 7% actually did quit because of mental health challenges
The data reveals a culture of silence where workers suffer in isolation rather than risk career consequences by speaking up.
4. Equity Compensation Games
What it is: Stock options or equity grants that give employees ownership stakes in the company. These are increasingly being manipulated to reduce long-term employee benefits.
Traditional Structure:
- 4-year vesting period with monthly vesting
- Often includes a 1-year “cliff” (no vesting until after the first year)
- Designed to retain talent and align employee interests with company growth
2025 Changes:
- Companies shifting from 4-year equity grants to 1-year grants, giving employers flexibility to reduce equity dilution by saving 75% of equity compared to four-year grants
- Employees receive less long-term security and reduced incentive to stay
- 20% of companies planning to shift refresh grants from time-based to performance-based vesting
- Refresh grant sizes shrinking: In 2023, 48% of executive refresh grants were more than 50% the size of new hire grants; by 2024, only 6% reached that level
- While companies like Stripe, Coinbase, and Lyft market this as “flexibility,” employees lose the potential for exponential equity value growth
Real-World Example: Under traditional 4-year vesting, if a company’s value skyrockets, an employee’s equity grant grows exponentially over four years. With 1-year grants, employees receive only one-fourth of this potential growth, as they’re re-negotiating their equity package annually based on current (already-inflated) company valuations.
5. Non-Compete Abuse
What it is: Legal agreements that prevent employees from working for competitors or starting competing businesses for a specified period after leaving their job.
2025 Issues:
- Non-competes create a “lock-in effect” that prevents workers from leaving toxic workplaces
- Studies show non-compete clauses reduce worker mobility and suppress wages by eliminating competition for talent
- Workers bound by non-competes face difficult choices: stay in harmful environments or risk legal action and unemployment
- Even when non-competes are legally questionable, the threat of expensive litigation deters workers from leaving
- The FTC attempted to ban most non-competes in 2024, but the rule faces legal challenges
The Real Impact: Non-competes don’t just restrict where you can work—they restrict whether you can leave at all. If you’re being overworked, underpaid, or mistreated, but your non-compete prevents you from joining a competitor (which in tech, could be almost any other company), you’re trapped. You either endure the abuse or face potential legal action and a gap in employment that makes you less hireable.
This compounds the 996 problem: even if you’re willing to leave a company demanding 72-hour weeks, your non-compete might prevent you from finding other work in your field. The power imbalance becomes absolute.
While some states have limited non-competes, many tech workers remain bound by these agreements, particularly those who work remotely for companies based in states with lax restrictions.
6. Expanding Job Scope Without Additional Resources
What it is: Workers being assigned more responsibilities, larger teams, or additional duties without corresponding increases in pay, staff, or support.
2025 Numbers:
- 65% of developers and engineering leaders report expanded responsibilities
- 40% are managing more direct reports than before
- Only 3% saw a decrease in scope
- 38% report working longer hours to accommodate expanded roles
- This compounds the workload crisis while companies reduce headcount through layoffs
Workers are essentially doing the jobs of multiple people who were laid off, without additional compensation or resources.
7. AI Job Displacement Anxiety
What it is: Fear that artificial intelligence will automate jobs and make human workers redundant, creating widespread unemployment in tech sectors.
Actual 2025 Displacement Numbers: The fear is becoming reality faster than predicted:
- 77,999 tech jobs lost to AI in the first six months of 2025 alone—that’s 427 people losing their jobs to AI every single day
- In 2025, 342 layoffs at tech companies have been directly attributed to AI
- 14% of all workers report already experiencing AI-related job displacement
- 10,375 job cuts in 2025 were explicitly attributed to AI
- Entry-level job postings have dropped 15% year-over-year as AI handles tasks formerly done by junior employees
Updated Projections (More Conservative Than Earlier Estimates): The World Economic Forum’s 2020 prediction that 85 million jobs would be displaced by 2025 appears to have been premature. However, the trajectory is concerning:
- 92 million jobs projected to be displaced by 2030, with 170 million new ones emerging—but these aren’t one-to-one replacements
- In the US specifically, 30% of jobs could be replaced by AI by 2030
- By 2030, 14% of employees globally will be forced to change careers due to AI
- 2.1 million jobs displaced globally as of 2025, while creating 1.6 million new roles (net loss of 500,000 jobs)
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicts AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, potentially pushing unemployment to 10-20%
Jobs Most Affected:
- 80% of customer service roles projected to be automated by 2025
- 53% of market research analyst tasks could be replaced
- 67% of sales representative tasks face automation
- Entry-level marketing assistant roles dropped 31% since 2022
- Data entry clerks face 56% reduction in hiring where AI form-processing is adopted
- Call center agents saw 41% drop in openings at firms with AI voice assistants
Anxiety Numbers:
- 46% of employees at organizations with comprehensive AI-driven redesign worry about job security (vs. 34% at less-advanced companies)
- Workers aged 18-24 are 129% more likely than those over 65 to worry AI will make their job obsolete
- 49% of Gen Z job seekers believe AI has reduced the value of their college education
- 35% of businesses have already integrated AI into operations, with another 42% exploring adoption
The Cruel Irony: Workers are being asked to work 996 schedules to build AI systems that may eliminate their own jobs. They’re sacrificing their health and families to create the technology that could make them obsolete—all while being told they’re “lucky to have a job” in the first place.
8. Mental Health Stigma and Silence
What it is: Cultural barriers preventing workers from discussing mental health struggles or seeking help without fear of career consequences.
2025 Numbers:
- 42% worry their career would be negatively impacted if they talked about mental health
- Nearly 50% worry about being judged by colleagues
- Only 13% told their supervisor their mental health was suffering
- Despite 77% saying they’d feel comfortable if a coworker talked to them about mental health, workers don’t believe it’s safe to discuss their own struggles
- Nearly 6 in 10 millennials haven’t disclosed mental health challenges to employers
The gap between what workers say they’d support and what they actually feel safe doing reveals the depth of workplace stigma.
9. “Quiet Cracking” and Disengagement
What it is: A state of persistent workplace unhappiness leading to emotional breakdown and disengagement, worse than traditional burnout.
2025 Numbers:
- 54% of employees experience “quiet cracking” (ranging from occasionally to constantly)
- Only 30% of employees globally feel engaged at work—the lowest level in over a decade
- This disengagement costs companies productivity while making workers miserable
Unlike “quiet quitting,” where workers do the minimum, “quiet cracking” represents workers emotionally breaking down while still showing up.
10. Return-to-Office Mandates
What it is: Companies requiring employees who worked remotely during the pandemic to return to physical offices, often with little flexibility.
2025 Numbers:
- 58% of employees say they would rather quit than return to full-time office work (up sharply from 35% in 2023)
- Many RTO mandates happen alongside demands for 996-style schedules
- Companies adding on-site requirements like Sonatic, which requires “seven days a week” in office, with perks like free housing and dating app subscriptions as incentives
The combination of RTO mandates with 996 schedules represents the worst of both worlds: long hours with no location flexibility.
Why This Matters
We’re watching a perfect storm converge on American tech workers:
- Impossible entry barriers preventing young workers from starting careers
- Extreme burnout affecting more than 80% of the workforce
- Toxic cultures that silence mental health concerns
- Shrinking equity compensation that reduces long-term wealth building
- Restrictive contracts that trap workers in bad situations
- Expanding workloads as companies eliminate positions
- AI displacement fears adding existential anxiety
- Mental health stigma preventing workers from getting help
- Quiet cracking as workers emotionally break down
- 996 schedules demanding 72-hour workweeks
All while being told they’re “lucky to have a job.”
The Ultimate Irony
Python creator Guido van Rossum called the 996 schedule “inhumane” when China was using it. Chinese state media outlets, not exactly known for worker advocacy, criticized the practice as “poisonous chicken soup” and said it “violates labor law.”
When China, a country often criticized for its labor practices, says something is too exploitative and bans it as illegal and we then import that same practice, something has gone profoundly wrong with American capitalism.
The tech industry sells itself on innovation, disruption, and building the future. But the future we’re building looks a lot like the past we thought we’d left behind: robber baron era exploitation dressed up in hoodies and standing desks.
What Happened to “Work Smarter, Not Harder”?
The cruelest irony is that the tech industry built its reputation on automation, efficiency, and productivity tools. The entire promise of technology was to reduce human labor and improve quality of life.
Instead, we’re using AI as justification to work humans harder than ever while simultaneously using the competitive threat of AI to justify eliminating jobs, suppressing wages, and demanding inhuman hours.
The 996 schedule isn’t a sign of dedication or ambition. It’s a sign of failure. Failure to build sustainable businesses, failure to manage resources effectively, failure to respect human dignity.
Data Sources
All statistics current as of October 2025 unless otherwise noted. Full source list can be found at https://theopenrecord.org/sources/996_sources.html Major sources include:
- China Supreme People’s Court rulings (August 2021)
- Ramp corporate spending data (2025)
- Fast Company tech layoffs tracker (October 2025)
- Workday burnout report (2025)
- NAMI Workplace Mental Health Poll (January 2025)
- Sequoia Compensation and Equity Trends Report (2025)
- Riviera Partners Executive Compensation Report (2025)
- The Interview Guys Workplace Burnout Research (October 2025)
- Blind tech worker surveys (2025)
- Gallup employee engagement data (2025)
- Wired, Fortune, Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg reporting on 996 adoption (July-October 2025)
The data tells a clear story: We’re building a work culture that destroys human beings. The only question is whether we’ll stop before the human cost becomes impossible to ignore—or if we’ll wait for our own court system to step in, as China’s did, after the damage is done.
