Why the 996 work culture is losing support among younger workers?

For many people who watched the first wave of Chinese tech companies grow, the 996 work culture once looked like the price of success. You started at nine in the morning, ended at nine at night, and did this six days a week. Long hours signaled commitment, and exhaustion was treated as a badge of honor. Today, younger workers look at the same story and see something very different. What sounded heroic to their seniors feels more like a warning about what not to do.

One reason for the shift is how visible the human cost of 996 has become. Younger employees grew up seeing news reports, social media posts, and online campaigns that highlighted burnout, health breakdowns, and even deaths linked to extreme overwork. The 996.icu movement, which jokes that a 996 schedule eventually sends you to the intensive care unit, has been shared and discussed widely. It has shaped how a new generation interprets heavy workloads. Instead of seeing long hours as a sign of ambition, many see them as poor management and unnecessary risk.

Language has also changed in a way that affects how people think about work. Ideas like neijuan, which describes an exhausting cycle of internal competition that produces very little real improvement in quality of life, are now common in online conversations. Young professionals use it as a shorthand for the feeling that they are running hard but not truly moving forward. When your peers are openly questioning whether the race is worth it, it becomes difficult to treat a seventy hour work week as something admirable.

The economic context has shifted as well. The earliest generation that embraced 996 did so at a time when tech companies were expanding at high speed. Many employees saw quick promotions, rapid salary growth, and in some cases, equity that transformed their financial position. Younger workers are entering a tighter market. Growth is slower, hiring is more cautious, and job security feels less certain. Working extreme hours might have felt like a rational gamble when the upside was clear. It feels far less rational when companies are restructuring, freezing hiring, or moving teams with little warning.

At the same time, younger workers have watched the long term impact of the 996 mindset on the people closest to them. They have seen parents come home drained from demanding jobs, too tired to engage with family. They have watched older colleagues struggle with chronic health problems, strained marriages, and a sense of regret about missing years of their children’s lives. They have noticed that many companies moved on quickly when those workers could no longer keep up. That lesson is powerful. It teaches that an employer’s loyalty is often conditional, and that sacrificing your body and personal life does not guarantee security.

Because of this, younger workers are listening very carefully to what employers say about culture. When a hiring manager hints that long hours are the norm and describes this as passion or drive, many candidates hear a different message. They hear that the company does not know how to prioritize, that it relies on endless overtime instead of clear focus, and that their wellbeing is likely to be treated as an expendable resource. They may still take the job because economic realities are real, but they rarely go in with blind trust. Instead, they quietly plan their exit or keep multiple options open.

Legal and reputational pressure also plays a part in weakening support for 996. In China, courts have clarified that schedules like 996 violate labor laws, and this has been reinforced through specific cases. Even if enforcement is uneven, the signal is clear. Extreme overtime is not officially acceptable. At the same time, global customers and investors are paying more attention to labor practices in the companies they buy from or back. A reputation for abusing employees is now seen as a risk to the brand and to long term business relationships.

All of these shifts show up in daily workplace behavior. Younger employees are more likely to look for companies that offer normal working hours and respect personal time, without trying to sugarcoat overtime with perks like free dinners or taxi rides home. They build side projects or freelance work as a form of insurance so that their income does not depend entirely on one employer. They are also more willing to leave when the expectations around availability and sacrifice feel unreasonable, even if the job looks prestigious from the outside.

For founders and leaders who grew up in a 996 world, this resistance can look like a lack of resilience. It is easy to conclude that younger people simply do not want to work hard. The reality is different. Many younger workers are willing to work intensely for specific periods, especially when there is a clear purpose, such as a product launch or a major client deadline. What they reject is constant chaos, where everything is urgent all the time and no one is willing to decide what truly matters.

They are also more confident about setting boundaries. Instead of silently accepting round the clock messaging, they ask direct questions. Why is there no proper on call rotation. Why are non urgent announcements sent late at night. Why is so much work waiting on one person’s approval. These questions may feel uncomfortable for leaders who are used to unquestioned control, but they often point to real structural problems. Fixing those problems tends to improve productivity more than simply demanding longer hours.

Underneath the generational conflict is a strategic truth. Sustainable performance is becoming a competitive advantage. Companies that insist on 996 as a cultural norm will find it harder to attract and retain strong talent, especially as more workers insist on healthier conditions. They will also struggle to build products that require deep thinking, creativity, and long attention, qualities that are hard to sustain when people are permanently exhausted. In contrast, organizations that design their workload and processes around realistic hours gain access to a wider pool of talent and build trust more easily.

For founders in regions that once looked to Chinese tech firms as role models, there is an important lesson here. Copying 996 copies the visible surface of an earlier era rather than the engine that created real value. That engine included clarity of vision, intense customer focus, and a willingness to invest in long term outcomes instead of short term appearances. Extreme hours were not the secret ingredient. They were a costly side effect. Younger workers have simply decided that this cost is too high for what it delivers. They still want meaningful work, growth, and fair rewards. They are still prepared to put in serious effort. But they want their careers to support a life that includes health, relationships, and time for themselves, not destroy those things in the name of ambition. They are armed with more information, more examples of what can go wrong, and more language to describe what they will not accept.

This is why the 996 work culture is losing support among younger workers. It is not because they are weaker. It is because they have seen the full equation and they are making a different choice. Leaders who recognise this shift and build environments where high performance and human limits can coexist will be the ones who attract the energy, creativity, and loyalty of the next generation. Those who cling to 996 as a symbol of toughness will find themselves increasingly alone with a tired team and a shrinking pipeline of people willing to join them.