Adopt 996? Singapore has things in better perspective

AMID the brouhaha of late over certain Chinese tech titans' endorsement of the country's famed 996 work culture, it's interesting that the latest statistics on Singapore's working hours apparently show trends in quite the opposite direction, drawing nary a murmur.

When Alibaba founder Jack Ma came out last month in ringing endorsement of a "9 to 9, six days a week" work schedule, describing working overtime as a "huge blessing" and saying that employees who don't subscribe to this philosophy "won't taste the happiness and rewards of hard work", he ignited a hot debate, in China and beyond. Fellow tech moguls weighed in, with one of Mr Ma's rivals calling employees who keep normal work hours "slackers". But the rank-and-file have had it. Sick of the 996 life they have been living, tech workers got organised online to name and shame the most demanding employers, spawning on GitHub (an online community of coding programmers) a 996.ICU project - referring to where 996 adherents might land up: a hospital's intensive care unit - as well as a new term, 955. One activist rallied workers to mail paper copies of China's labour law to Mr Ma, and even the Chinese state media - which surely embrace and celebrate the inexorable rise in recent years of China's global tech supremacy - called on employers to ease back.

Meanwhile, as Singaporeans followed the 996 debate with bemused interest, the latest figures out of the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), updated in March, show that the number of paid weekly working hours per employee here has been falling steadily over the decade - going below 45 in 2018, from 46.3 in 2008. At an average 44.8 hours last year, that's barely nine hours a day on a five-day work week. Paid overtime work hours have also fallen - from 3.8 hours a week in 2008 to just 2.8 in 2018. Slackers all, in the eyes of Chinese e-commerce retailer JD.com no doubt, but fortunately, Singapore has things in better perspective.