Josh Horwitz

SHANGHAI, (Reuters) – A viral campaign asking workers from high-profile Chinese companies to record their hours online has been viralized in response to the growing culture of overtime.

The “Worker Lives Matter Campaign” was created by anonymous founders and aimed at recent college graduates. It asks tech workers to submit their name, job title, and work hours into a spreadsheet on GitHub.

On Thursday, over 4,000 individuals said that they were employed by tech giants like Google. Alibaba (NYSE:) Group Holding Ltd. Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ :), Tencent Holdings. Ltd.

In the meantime, employees also have created spreadsheets that are specific to certain sectors, such as foreign and finance companies, real estate, or finance.

The majority of entries in the spreadsheet indicate that, while five days a week is normal, staff work between 10 and 12 hours per day.

In a blog post, one of the founders stated that the goal was for the list to be a useful reference tool for workers in their job search.

Another post was written by the team, arguing that the 996 practice of working nine to nine p.m. every day six days a year was widespread and that working hours in internet companies were sometimes opaque.

One of China’s creators of Q&A site Zhihu stated that they hoped to contribute to “996”””s boycott and popularization. This post was viewed six million times. The number 95 means “9 a.m. to 5. p.m. every day, seven days a semaine.”

Alibaba, Tencent Baidu, ByteDance and Baidu did not respond immediately to our requests for comment.

For China’s young white-collar workers, long work hours are hot topics.

In 2019, tech workers started a similar campaign online against “996”.

The government’s crackdown against tech companies has raised concerns about long working hours. This has brought attention to the treatment of workers by these firms.

Companies like TikTok’s owner ByteDance and Kuaishou, a short-video platform, and Meituan, a food delivery company, have reduced weekend overtime. China’s highest court declared “996 illegal” in August.