The Chinese are working more hours than ever
A shrinking labour force means things could get even worse
When the National Bureau of Statistics announced that in April workers across China toiled an average of 48.8 hours a week, the agency was ridiculed. That number includes government workers, wrote a commenter on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. “Try counting only in private companies.” There is no need to count, wrote another, “just look at the lights of office buildings at night.”
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Peak toil”
From the July 15th 2023 edition
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