Overtime Dogs 加班狗

English: Overtime Dogs

中文：加班狗

Pinyin: Jiābān gǒu

Overtime work has become a common phenomenon in Chinese companies.  Young workers are burdened with great pressure to survive in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, thus the term “overtime dog” (jiaban gou; 加班狗) was created.

Background

According to one estimate by a researcher at Beijing Normal University, Chinese workers log an average of 2,000-2,200 working hours each year – far higher than their counterparts in the United States (1,790 hours per year), the Netherlands (1,419), Germany (1,371) and even Japan (1,719), according to OECD statistics.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the average weekly working hours of employees in enterprises across the country was 46 hours , which has long exceeded the standard working hours of 40 hours per week stipulated in China’s “Labor Law” . In 2020, young office workers between the ages of 20 and 34 will occupy one third of the global workplace and become the backbone of the workplace.
In terms of working days, young office workers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen usually work overtime for 1 to 2 hours a day, and it is not a minority (22.42%) that they work over 2 hours a day. In Guangzhou, the proportion of people working over 2 hours a day is the highest (37.27%).
There is also a circulation of sarcastic memes about mundane work and intense work environments. Such as “overtime dogs” (jiaban gou; 加班狗), corporate cattle (shechu; 社畜), and brick-movers (ban zhuan; 搬砖) have become popular for describing any occupation who all share the pain of doing nerve racking labor.

An amateur Shanghai choir devoted a tongue-in-cheek song to their status as “overtime dogs” – a slang term for white-collar workers – entitled “My Body Is Hollowed Out.”

 

Examples

References

  1. http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/2016-08/29/content_26627234.htm 
  2. https://www.afenxi.com/76893.html

Further Reading

 

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02/04/2023 No Comments
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