Pinduoduo, a Chinese e-commerce platform experiencing rapid expansion, is currently addressing a public relations challenge following the death of one of its employees, which has led to scrutiny of the company's demanding work schedule.

The employee, aged 21, experienced a collapse while commuting home late at night shortly before the New Year. While the specific cause of death remains undisclosed, online discussions suggest exhaustion may have been a contributing factor.

The hashtag #PinduoduoEmployeeSuddenDeath has generated 300 million views on Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging service. In a separate incident, another Pinduoduo employee died by suicide on January 9th, jumping from an apartment on the 27th floor. Reports indicate that local labor authorities are now reviewing the working conditions at Pinduoduo’s Shanghai headquarters.

On Sunday, a former Pinduoduo staff member publicly criticized the company’s high-pressure work environment in a widely circulated video, further intensifying public concern regarding Alibaba’s primary competitor. The former employee claimed that individuals at Pinduoduo’s main office are expected to work a minimum of 300 hours per month – approximately 75 hours per week – while those in the recently launched grocery delivery division are required to work at least 380 hours monthly. The employee who collapsed while traveling home was employed within Pinduoduo’s grocery business in the Xinjiang province.

Sources familiar with the company told TechCrunch that employees involved in specific projects at Pinduoduo may regularly work over 300 hours a month, although this is not a formal requirement. Across the company, employees are generally expected to work from 11 AM to 8 PM.

Pinduoduo has not yet issued a statement in response to these reports.

Extended working hours are not exclusive to Pinduoduo within China. These recent events are reigniting the discussion surrounding “996,” a term representing a work schedule of 9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week, but which can also describe any rigorous work pattern prevalent in China’s competitive internet sector.

Despite the public criticism and calls for a boycott, Pinduoduo’s position in the market appears stable. Data from Jiguang, a data analytics firm, shows that app downloads have remained consistent since the initial employee incident two weeks ago, with some days even showing a slight increase in installations. As of January 8th, Pinduoduo had accumulated nearly 650 million installs.

The company’s stock, listed in New York, rose from $144 on December 28th to $187 on January 5th, before decreasing slightly to $174 on January 11th. Several Pinduoduo venture capital investors contacted by TechCrunch declined to provide comments for this article.

These figures may be significant. While Pinduoduo is working to attract users in wealthier Chinese cities, a large portion of its user base resides in lower-tier cities and rural areas. The “996” work culture common among tech companies in major cities may not resonate with these users, while the discounted prices offered by Pinduoduo – known for its “dirt cheap” products – are immediately appealing.