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Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
The Chinese authorities launched an investigation into working conditions in Pinduoduo Inc. after the death of an employee in her 20s who renewed criticism for the long hours that are commonly practiced in Chinese technology companies.
The e-commerce company confirmed that an employee collapsed while walking home with her colleagues at 1:30 a.m. last Tuesday. The employee, who was born in 1998 and joined Pinduoduo in July 2019, could not be resuscitated and died after nearly six hours of first aid, according to a statement. His death sparked a social media backlash against Pinduoduo and the relentless work schedules expected of his workers, prompting district officials from the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Office to begin an investigation.
The call Office hours for 996, 9 a.m. deceased. Still, the tech billionaires of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. JD.com Inc. CEO Richard Liu has endorsed the practice as necessary to survive in an intensely competitive industry and as the key to accumulating personal wealth.
Read more: China loses a tech generation as big reward promise fades
“Chinese Internet companies should think beyond achieving unicorn status and IPOs, and a stable and healthy corporate culture is imperative for long-term growth,” said Marlon Mai, managing director of hiring consultancy Morgan McKinley. , based in Shanghai. “Employee health is a problem that cannot be ignored.”
The online criticism adds to the challenges for China’s largest tech companies, which spent the past year dodging the Trump administration’s efforts to curb their growth while navigating increased regulatory scrutiny at home. In November, Beijing unveiled regulations designed to stamp out monopolistic practices in the internet industry, prompting a sell-off in the previously high-flying tech sector.
Despite the year-end slump at Alibaba and its peers, Pinduoduo had emerged relatively unscathed and its shares rose to a record on December 30. Growth by expanding into the hot online food sector ended the year up nearly 370%. That helped elevate founder Colin Huang to the position of China’s second-richest man, surpassing other internet entrepreneurs like Alibaba’s Ma and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Chairman Pony Ma, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Pinduoduo sank 6.1% in New York on Monday.
A hashtag about the employee’s death has attracted more than 260 million views on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo service as of Tuesday. Criticism of the online retailer intensified after Pinduoduo confirmed that a post on the Zhihu service similar to Quora, which said that all people at the lower levels of society exchange their lives for money, had originated from their official account. . After initially claiming the post was fake, Pinduoduo later it apologized and said a contractor had uploaded it without authorization, adding that the company strongly objected to the views expressed.
State CCTV published a Tuesday comment that warned against trading human lives for profit. Without naming specific corporations, CCTV called on authorities to step up regulatory oversight to protect workers’ rights.
In response to the uproar, the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Office will dispatch an investigation team to Pinduoduo and gather relevant company information, an official from the Changning District Branch who only wanted to be known as Wang told Bloomberg. News by phone.
– With the help of Zheping Huang
(Updates with details about the government investigation starting with the first paragraph)
