In this undated file photo, a Pinduoduo user shows the app on the smartphone in Beijing. (PHOTO / CHINA DAILY)

The recent death of an employee of Pinduoduo, a fast-growing e-commerce giant, has reignited public concerns over the hectic work schedules commonly adopted by Chinese tech firms.

The incident has also prompted employment authorities in Shanghai, where Pinduoduo is registered, to investigate the New York-listed company for alleged abuses of labor rights.

The employee, identified only by her surname Zhang, worked with Pinduoduo's expanding grocery delivery service in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

She apparently suffered from a stomachache before fainting on a street in Urumqi, the regional capital, at 1:30 am on Dec 29 when she was walking home after work with colleagues, the company said in a statement posted on Sina Weibo, a microblogging service, on Monday.

The 22-year-old, who joined Pinduoduo in July 2019, died at a local hospital after a six-hour resuscitation effort failed to save her, it said.

The statement also included a screenshot of a message that Pinduoduo said was posted by Zhang's father on WeChat, an instant-messaging tool. Pinduoduo said it was authorized to repost the message.

The father wrote that the Zhang family hoped to let his daughter finish her last leg of life "quietly", and begged people not to involve her in the swirl of "public opinions".

"Our colleagues have been accompanying Zhang's family, and Zhang's body was cremated on Jan 3 as her family wished," the company said.

"We love you, miss you deeply," it added.

The statement didn't mention the cause of death, but netizens were quick to allege that working late nights led to the tragedy.

"Is it really hard to get off work on time?" one Weibo user commented.

"Two employees are paid the salaries of three, but are told to finish tasks that should have been shared among four," another added, referring to the excessive workload facing well-paid tech firm employees.

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The Labor Security Inspectorate in Shanghai's Changning district quickly stepped in.

The labor watchdog told Beijing Youth Daily on Monday that it had noticed the public opinions circulating online and decided to launch an investigation into the company's employment practices.

The hashtag "Shanghai's employment authorities have launched an investigation into Pinduoduo" had been viewed 40.6 million times on Sina Weibo by press time.

Xinhua News Agency said in a brief editorial posted on Weibo on Tuesday that dreams should be pursued through striving, but workers' legitimate rights and interests should not be sacrificed and employers may be breaking the law in encouraging health-sapping overwork.

"Strengthening the protection of legal rights and interests for workers, letting those chasing their dreams run along in a healthy manner and introducing more warmth into the development of enterprises－that's the form striving should take," it said.

The grief and anger surrounding Zhang's death is the latest sign of growing frustrations over the tech industry's tradition of encouraging employees to work long hours.

The abusive working schedule has become known among the tech community as "996"－working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week, usually without overtime pay.

In 2019, Chinese tech workers united for an online protest by creating a page named 996.ICU on code-sharing platform Git-Hub.com, which garnered widespread attention.

The name 996.ICU refers to a saying among Chinese developers that following the 996 schedule puts you at risk of ending up in an intensive care unit.

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Users of the page listed tech companies that used the 996 schedule, and then created a licensing agreement that would ban such companies from using their code.

Xu Haoqi, a programmer who has worked in tech firms in Beijing and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, described the sector as a "intellect-intensive" industry.

In a sense, writing code is no different from tightening screws on an assembly line.

Xu Haoqi, a programmer who has worked in tech firms in Beijing and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province

The 27-year-old said tech-workers, just like factory workers and others employed in labor-intensive industries, are prone to work overtime because longer working hours means more output.

"In a sense, writing code is no different from tightening screws on an assembly line," he said.

China's Labor Law, passed 25 years ago, prescribes that the working hours of an employee should not exceed an average of eight hours a day, or 44 hours a week. Employers may extend working hours after consultation with an employee, but the extension should not exceed three hours a day or 36 hours a month.

The 996 work schedule, however, can easily ratchet up weekly work to 60 hours, without incurring penalties.

Li Na, a labor law researcher at China University of Labor Relations, said failings in law enforcement were partly to blame.

"The labor security inspection departments are usually understaffed," she said. "Authorities also lack the incentive to enforce the law stringently for fear of affecting production and, ultimately, tax revenue."

The law also requires employers to pay workers 50 percent more for hours spent working late on weekdays, with double pay on weekends and triple pay on public holidays.

However, many companies have used basic salary－without counting bonus payments－as a base to calculate overtime pay, making it cheaper for companies to ask employees to work long hours. The practice has also been upheld by employment authorities.

To address the problem, Li suggested that authorities intervene to prevent bonus payments from becoming the majority of salary, thus making it more expensive to force employees to work late nights.

Zhao Wei, a sociology professor at Beijing Normal University, said the overwork culture is not limited to the tech industry and can exist in less visible forms.

"For example, real estate agents usually are on call 24/7," she said.

Xu, the programmer, said food delivery workers, couriers and drivers for car-hailing services are all facing the same fate.

"They are just less vocal," he said.

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Contact the writer at lilei@chinadaily.com.cn