The billionaire founder of Alibaba has come under fire for his views on the controversial practice known as "996." According to Ma, '996 is a huge blessing'. This number refers to Ma’s belief that everyone in his company should happily work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. However, now it has become a subject of controversy in China as tech firms place increasingly high expectations on workers.
— Yonathan Seleshi (@yonathanseleshi) April 15, 2019
ABC News quoted Jack Ma as saying, "How do you achieve the success you want without paying extra effort and time?" Ma added that the real 996 is not overtime work. The billionaire is now facing criticism from netizens — as well as Chinese state media. He, however, later appeared to walk back his comments. "If you find a job you like, the 996 problem does not exist — if you're not passionate about it, every minute at work is torture," he said in the lengthy post to Weibo.
"No one likes working at a company that forces you to do 996. Not only is it inhumane, it's unhealthy and even more unsustainable for long periods — plus workers, relatives and the law do not approve of it." "In the long term, no matter how high the salary you pay your employees, they will all leave," Ma was quoted as saying.
4-day work week
In contradictory to Ma's comment, there are countries which follow a four-day week arrangement, where a workplace or school has its employees or students work or attend school over the course of four days per week rather than the more customary five.
In 2008, employees of the Utah state government all began working ten-hour days from Monday to Thursday. By closing state government offices on Fridays, the state expected to save on operating costs such as electricity, heat, air conditioning, and gasoline for state-owned vehicles.
Over 100 school districts in rural areas in the United States, like Hawaii, changed the school week to a four-day week; most also extended each school day by an hour or more.
In Gambia, a four-day work week was introduced for public officials by president Yahya Jammeh, effective 1 February 2013. Working hours were limited to Monday through Thursday, 08:00 to 18:00, with Friday designated as a day of rest to allow residents more time for prayer and agriculture.
In 2016, an IT company in Romania, declared Monday as a day off. As a result of reducing the work week by 20 percent, they noted that Fridays have become much more productive.