Shenzhen Firm Lambasted for Asking Applicants to Work for Free

By Lars James Hamer, October 21, 2022

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Haimingwei Science and Technology, a company operating in Shenzhen came under fire after it asked potential employees if they would be willing to work overtime without pay, South China Morning Post reports. 

A leaked questionnaire that went viral on Chinese social media featured 14 questions and “many asked whether employees would accept working overtime for free,” the article in South China Morning Post says. 

The application form also queried if those applying would accept delays in their pay and handle job-related tasks during their free time. 

Other questions include asking employees if they would be willing to attend meetings and company events in the evening and on weekends.

According to China labor law, anyone who works more than 40 hours per week should be paid overtime.

A series of particularly strange questions asked whether candidates would accept managers hiring their family members and how they would react if the company refused to pay a housing allowance. 

Red flag, anyone?

“We heard that the company distributed this questionnaire recently,” an unnamed spokesman for the local government human resources bureau told China News Week. “We told them to rectify this problem because asking these types of questions are banned during job interviews.”

Staff at Haimingwei told news website cqcb.com “There is no standard answer. It is just a survey and it would not affect the applicant’s chances of getting hired. The company simply wants to know if the potential employee is willing to work overtime. This is just for keeping statistics,” as quoted in South China Morning Post

Over four million people have viewed a video of the questionnaire on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

Many netizens expressed their disgust over the application but also stated that practices like this have become commonplace in China. 

Last month, a man in Fujian province worked so much overtime that he couldn’t open his eyes. 

READ MORE: Man Works So Much Overtime that He Can’t Open His Eyes


[Image via Wikimedia]

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