"Keeping Your Phone On 24/7 and Always Responding" Remarks Cause Baidu Stock to Fall, Why?

"I even forgot my eldest son's birthday"
Apologizes on SNS, "Deeply Reflecting" after Controversy

The vice president in charge of public relations at Baidu, China's largest search company, posted a video online that normalized and glorified employees' 'long working hours.' After sparking outrage among Chinese netizens, he eventually apologized.

On the 9th, Yonhap News reported, citing Chinese media and the British BBC, that Vice President Qi Jing recently posted 4 to 5 videos on his personal account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

[Photo by Baidu China]

In these videos, he claimed that "if you work in the PR field, don't expect to rest on weekends," and "you must keep your phone on 24 hours and always be ready to respond," implying that it is natural for employees to work long overtime hours for the company.

He also stated in the videos that "I am not the mother of the employees, so I have no responsibility for welfare," and questioned, "Why should I consider the employees' families?" He warned employees who complained about his management by saying, "I can make it impossible for you to find a job in this industry."

He also mentioned, "I have been so busy working that I remember my colleagues' birthdays but forgot my eldest son's birthday."

[Photo by BBC]

Netizens who saw his videos reacted strongly. Baidu's stock price was also negatively affected. Netizens responded with comments such as "anachronistic leadership" and sarcastic remarks like "Where did you find the time to have a son?"

After his remarks became known, Baidu's stock, listed on the U.S. stock market, plunged nearly 4% on the 7th (local time).

Subsequently, Vice President Qi deleted all the problematic videos and apologized, saying, "I apologize for the misunderstanding caused to the public regarding our company's values and corporate culture due to inappropriate videos," and added, "I will improve communication methods and take better care of my colleagues." Meanwhile, Baidu has not issued any specific statement regarding this controversy.

The British BBC noted that the anger sparked by Vice President Qi highlights the notoriously harsh working conditions in China's IT sector. It also mentioned that Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, once said that people working under the '996 work culture' is a 'blessing.'

[Photo by Yonhap News]

Although overtime work is illegal, the '996 work system' has become a norm in China's IT industry. The 996 work system means working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. In 2022, the deaths of employees from Bilibili, known as the Chinese YouTube, Weixin, a leading Chinese messenger company, and ByteDance, the parent company of the short video sharing platform TikTok, sparked social issues.

Later that year, Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree, China's largest air conditioner manufacturer and a representative of the National People's Congress, strongly criticized the 996 work system at the annual Two Sessions (National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), calling for prosecutors to file public interest lawsuits on behalf of overworked laborers.