In May 2019, the government of Xiangzhou District in Zhuhai, Guangdong, issued rules on its officials’ WeChat work groups. Each department could keep only one official group. One rule read: “In principle, work information is not posted outside working hours.”
A few days later, the Yangcheng Evening News commented: “WeChat brings convenience, but it has also blurred the line between life and work, and produced more and more hidden overtime.”
In work groups, most managers end a message with 收到回复, “reply ‘received’,” to make sure that staff have seen it. A report by the business site Sanyan Caijing, republished in February 2022, described the custom. It added that a request to reply “received” does not mean that the employee must 秒回, reply within seconds.
The same report quoted a notice from a management consulting company in Guangdong. The company had posted a holiday notice in its group at 5:56 p.m. on January 10, 2022. No one replied within two hours. Citing its rules for the use of WeChat Work, the notice said that the company would fine every employee 200 yuan.
A supermarket store manager in Shenyang, named in the report as Zhao Linlin, belonged to 38 WeChat work groups. In April 2023 she asked her employer for about 37,000 yuan in overtime pay. Arbitration rejected the claim, and she went to court.
The court held that her after-hours work on WeChat went beyond simple communication, was substantive labor and clearly took up her rest time. It counted as overtime. The case ended in mediation, with the employer agreeing to pay 8,400 yuan. China News Service reported the case in March 2024.
In September 2020, the China Youth Daily reported a survey of 2,002 people by its social survey center. 73.2 percent said that the volume of messages in work groups disturbed their lives. 35.6 percent said that the groups blurred the line between work and life. The report put it this way: “People have less and less time of their own. They must keep an eye on WeChat at all times, and work at all times.”
Before the national Two Sessions in March 2026, a survey of 1,998 people by the same center found that 55.5 percent hoped the “right to offline rest” would be protected.
In October 2026, the Workers’ Daily reported on employees who handle work groups after hours. One worker deals with more than 100 groups a day. Another has nearly 10,000 group chats. According to the report, this work brings no overtime pay at all, and a late reply can bring a customer complaint and a cut in performance pay.
Jiang Yiqin, a deputy presiding judge at the Daxing District People’s Court in Beijing, was quoted as saying: “Employers cannot treat ‘always online’ as an implied duty of workers.”
China’s Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees took effect on January 1, 2008. They grant 5 days of leave a year after one year of work, 10 days after ten years and 15 days after twenty years.
The regulations say who decides when: “The unit, according to the specific circumstances of production and work, and taking into account the wishes of the employee, arranges the employees’ annual leave as a whole.” For leave that is due but not taken, the unit must pay 300 percent of the daily wage.
In May 2017, a China Youth Daily survey of 1,997 workers found that 64.9 percent worked for units where annual leave had to be taken within the year or it lapsed. Only 30.4 percent said their unit paid 300 percent of the daily wage for leave not taken. 71.5 percent wanted their unit to schedule their paid leave for them.
In January 2025, the Workers’ Daily reported that nearly 70 percent of respondents to a survey had not used all their annual leave for 2024. The report did not say who ran the survey. More than 60 percent of those with leave left had chosen to give it up.
On March 1, 1994, China began an alternating working week. In one week, Saturday and Sunday were rest days. In the next, only Sunday was. The pattern was called 大小周, big and small weeks.
On March 25, 1995, the State Council amended its rules on working hours. From May 1, 1995, employees worked eight hours a day and 40 hours a week, and the five-day week began.
On November 10, 2024, Premier Li Qiang signed a State Council decision amending the rules on public holidays. From January 1, 2025, the Spring Festival holiday became four days: New Year’s Eve and the first three days of the first lunar month. Labor Day became two days, May 1 and 2.
In 1980, the State Labor Administration and the Ministry of Finance issued a notice on marriage and funeral leave for employees of state enterprises. When employees marry, or when a parent, spouse or child dies, “the administrative leader of the unit may, according to the specific circumstances, approve and grant one to three days of marriage or funeral leave at discretion.”