Employees in China may get a chance to take a breath from the grueling "996 work culture", where people work from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week, after several Chinese companies issued internal reminders to prevent formalistic overtime working and workplace rat race.

The central government has also shown greater determination to regulate the unwholesome "work culture".

In an action plan released recently by the State Council, China's Cabinet, local authorities have been urged to better protect workers' right to rest and tighten supervision of employers' behavior of illegally lengthening employees' working hours.

Before the release of the action plan, several Chinese companies sought to relax their tiring working schedules.

Shenzhen-based drone manufacturer DJI became a trending topic on social media platform Sina Weibo recently after some of its employees posted their experiences of not being allowed to work overtime after 9 pm.

The posts said that DJI's human resources managers patrolled around the building and asked the employees to leave by 9 pm.

Midea, a home appliance manufacturer, issued an internal notice in late January, asking its staff members to streamline their working patterns. Midea confirmed the existence of the notice, according to Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper.

The group asked the employees not to have meetings or work overtime, reduce the number of work-related WeChat groups and prohibit any formalistic behavior.

As employees have seen increased working hours in recent years, even longer than the length regulated by the nation's Labor Law, their complaints about the unreasonable schedules intensified after the "996 work culture" was promoted by some large companies or industrial titans.

"My colleagues and I usually joke that we get a 'sense of shame' by leaving the office at 6 pm sharp. It has become a stereotype that you are not hardworking if you don't stay very late to work in the office," said Wang Xiaofeng, a telecommunications engineer in Beijing, who works from 9 am to 8 pm and on Saturday every other week.

The 30-year-old said he was happy to see this news and hopes that his company can relax its working schedules, as the job has almost taken all of his time so far. However, he expressed his concerns that it may be hard to quantify the overtime work and overtime fees if an employee has to continue work after returning home.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that employees at domestic companies have had longer working hours in recent years — reaching 49 hours a week in 2024, up from 47.9 hours in 2022.

However, based on the Labor Law, employees should work no more than eight hours a day and a maximum of 44 hours a week. Employers can lengthen the working day by one hour at most after negotiating with trade unions and employees.

Experts and industry insiders said the measures taken by companies to shorten working hours or optimize working patterns will help protect employees' rights and their physical and psychological health.

"As job seekers' views about careers, labor relations and working patterns have changed in the new era, employers may find that the employees are losing their passion for or loyalty to the job after being asked to work overtime," said Li Qiang, vice-president of recruitment portal Zhaopin.

Noting that work schedules like"996" have hurt people's working rights, Li Chang'an, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said that employees find it hard to achieve a work-life balance and may have health or marriage problems because of those unreasonable schedules.

He said that steps taken by these companies to improve their working schedules will help promote high-quality employment, with their working hours being more in line with the national regulations.

"The companies themselves can also improve their attractiveness to workers, as corporate social responsibility and sound protection of workers' right to rest have become an important part of their competitiveness in the market," Li said.

He said he hopes that more companies can adopt a reasonable and humanistic work culture to ease the workload, which can help create harmonious working relationships, expand consumption and increase the marriage rate.