Techburnout

Many tech firms demand their staff work long hours. Barry Collins examines the toll it’s taking on employee wellbeing

Sixty hours a week “is the sweet spot of productivity”, according to a recent leaked memo written by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Sixty hours? Man up, Sergey. The Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy called for young staff to work 70-hour weeks, claiming “I don’t believe in work-life balance”.

Seventy hours a week is dialling it in, according to Alibaba founder Jack Ma, a big fan of China’s “996” work culture, which entails working from 9am to 9pm six days a week. “If you find something you like, there is no such thing as 996; if you don’t like it or don’t love it, going to work is torture every minute,” he stated in a 2019 blog post, translated from Chinese. (See “What’s it like to work 996?” on p37.)

Even if you absolutely love your job, there’s no shortage of evidence that working all the hours the big tech bosses demand is akin to torture – damaging to your physical wellbeing, as well as your mental health. In March, a survey from ISACA, a global professional association, found that 61% of IT staff said that a heavy workload was contributing to their high levels of workplace stress and burnout, while more than 40% said tight deadlines (44%) and long hours (42%) were impacting their wellbeing.

For all the free healthcare, gym memberships and six-figure salaries big tech companies offer, is signing up for one of their demanding jobs in effect writing off your own wellbeing?

Killing yourself at your desk

There’s no shortage of evidence that working the long hours many of the big tech firms demand is detrimental to your health. It might not be sending miners down a coal pit, but the effects on employees’ health can be every bit as serious.

A 2021 analysis conducted by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization showed a clear link between long hours and life-limiting conditions. The study showed that working 55 or more hours per week – far less than the figures being demanded by the big tech bosses – is associated with a 17% higher risk of ischemic heart disease and a 35% higher risk of stroke compared to those working standard 35 to 40-hour weeks.

Sergey Brin, Narayana Murthy and Jack Ma are all in favour of longer working hours – despite the damaging evidence

To put that into hard numbers, in 2016 an estimated 745,194 deaths and 23.3 million disability-adjusted life years were attributed to long working hours. Three-quarters of a million people dying because they spend too long at work. To put this into context, that’s roughly half the number of people who died of Covid in 2020, before vaccines were introduced.