---
title: "FMCG Workers Have No 996!"
description: "The 996 work schedule, originating from a protest by internet workers, has sparked widespread debate. In the FMCG industry, however, workers like shop owner Zhang Jie, salesperson Li Qiang, and distributor Wang Lei operate without such a schedule, facing their own unique pressures and realities."
author: "新经销刘少德"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-04-20"
language: "en"
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---

# FMCG Workers Have No 996!

> The 996 work schedule, originating from a protest by internet workers, has sparked widespread debate. In the FMCG industry, however, workers like shop owner Zhang Jie, salesperson Li Qiang, and distributor Wang Lei operate without such a schedule, facing their own unique pressures and realities.

996, which originated from a "996.ICU" campaign initiated by some internet industry practitioners on a well-known code hosting platform, was a protest against the work schedule of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, implemented by certain companies. Subsequently, internet tycoons represented by Ma Yun and Zhou Hongyi publicly expressed support for 996, but were later criticized by official media such as People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency. For a time, the controversy over 996 became a hot topic of public discussion.
**A debate over 996 dragged a group of internet tycoons into the whirlpool of public opinion. Turning to the FMCG industry, what we see is: FMCG workers have no 996!**
"Off work! A package arrived for you today. Remember to pick it up." "Okay, thanks, Sister Zhang. I'll see if I need to buy anything else."
At 9 p.m., a small shop on the East Second Ring Road in Beijing was brightly lit, with a steady stream of customers. Sister Zhang was greeting new customers while quickly checking out the ones beside her. Although there were occasional passersby, it was easy to tell from her familiarity with them that most of the customers at Sister Zhang's shop were regulars.
Sister Zhang's shop is less than 50 square meters, but the assorted beverages, snacks, and daily chemical products displayed there basically meet the daily needs of nearby residents. And less than 100 meters away, there is also a 7-Eleven.
"We usually open at 7 a.m. and close at midnight. On weekends, we open a bit later and sometimes sleep in," Sister Zhang told New Distribution. "After running the shop for so long, most nearby residents know what we have. If we have it, they'll basically buy it here; if not, they might buy it online. Sometimes, if they can't come down, they just send a WeChat message and we can deliver it upstairs."
In Beijing, there are many shops like Sister Zhang's.
In the new retail landscape represented by the three major foreign convenience store chains, these mom-and-pop shops have survived tenaciously because of their long business hours and close proximity to consumers. According to statistics, chain-operated and scaled retail enterprises currently account for only 13% of the traditional retail market share, while individual retail terminals like Sister Zhang's account for 87% of the market share. According to data from Kantar Retail, there are currently nearly 7 million small shops in China, including mom-and-pop stores, which contribute 40% of the total shipment volume of the entire retail channel. Among them, about **30% of mom-and-pop shops are in townships and rural areas, and 46% are in third-tier cities and county-level cities, earning them the nickname "ant soldiers" of the retail world.**
**However, in their concept of business hours, there has never been anything like 996.**
In April, Beijing is still chilly. Although the peak season for beverages hasn't truly arrived, related market activities are already in full swing, with some brands naming their campaigns "spring plowing."
Li Qiang is a salesperson for a beverage brand in Beijing. Having drifted in Beijing for five years, he has seen colleagues come and go, but he has remained on the front lines of the market. His steady and capable style has won him many loyal customers, and he has gradually risen from a grassroots salesperson to a sales supervisor. However, his workload and working hours have not decreased with the promotion.
"I basically have no rest now. I used to have one day off a week, but now with so much performance pressure, where's the time for rest?" When New Distribution met him, he was helping tidy up shelves in a small shop. As the beverage peak season approaches, the dozens of boxes of drinks pressed at the beginning of the year's ordering meeting finally gave Li Qiang hope for sell-through.
"If I don't work hard now, there's no hope for May and June. All manufacturers are competing for displays, end caps, and refrigerator shelf space. If you don't work on weekends, you might not see your products next week." Li Qiang said to New Distribution while skillfully handling the cut cases by the checkout counter. **When asked about his views on 996, Li Qiang replied: "It's good enough if I don't get laid off!"**
**When anxiety becomes a social norm, the FMCG industry is naturally no exception.**
On March 6, P&G, the daily chemical giant, announced its delisting from the Euronext Paris exchange. As soon as the news broke, talk of "the giant falling from its pedestal" was rife. At the same time, news also surfaced that P&G had replaced its CEO four times, cut over a hundred brands, and laid off nearly 10,000 people. Domestic FMCG companies have not been spared either. The slowdown or even stagnation in growth caused by the disappearance of the demographic dividend has forced brand owners to cut costs by laying off employees and closing markets.
Public data shows that a well-known food and beverage company reduced its workforce from a peak of 80,541 employees in 2013 to 56,995 in 2017, and its sales offices decreased from 566 to 369. Nongfu Spring even proposed the slogan "layoffs if no growth in three years." It is reported that in 2019, Nongfu Spring will retain only 16 offices in the Henan region, excluding Zhengzhou, which is 3 fewer than in 2018 and 7 fewer than in 2017.
**"Society must progress, and enterprises must develop. Anything proposed has its reasons. Some people are unhappy and complain, but it's useless. There are many people in China. If you leave, someone new will replace you immediately. What can you do?" Li Qiang said to New Distribution.**
As more and more post-95s and even post-00s enter the workforce, non-996 has become an important criterion for many new employees when evaluating whether a company is worth joining. Coupled with the rise of new occupations such as couriers and food delivery riders, compared to a few years ago, fewer fresh faces are entering the FMCG industry in recent years.
"It's hard to recruit young salespeople. We basically don't recruit young salespeople anymore," Wang Lei, a beverage brand distributor, told New Distribution, because in his view, to some extent, "young" almost equals "unreliable." "The company requires us to have a morning meeting at 8 a.m. every day, with at least 26 days of morning meetings per month. These young people either arrive late or don't show up. How can the company be managed? In the end, if performance targets aren't met and market expenses aren't reimbursed, it's still us who suffer."
The shortage of personnel forced Wang Lei, even though his business has reached a scale of 50 million yuan, to go to the warehouse every day of the week. Additionally, because he has to reconcile accounts every night, it's not uncommon for him to eat dinner after midnight.
What troubles Wang Lei is not just personnel issues. The tasks assigned by manufacturers increase year by year, and profit margins are getting thinner. All these make Wang Lei dare not slack off or relax. He attributes this tension to "industry characteristics." **"The FMCG industry is essentially a service industry. When others are on holiday, that's when you're busiest. Customers don't care if it's Monday or Sunday when they're out of stock! If you don't deliver today, a competitor will deliver immediately. Do you want the business or not?"**
Traditional distribution businesses emerged after the reform and opening-up. Foreign brands such as Coca-Cola, P&G, and Unilever entered China one after another, while the private economy began to recover, and national brands like Nongfu Spring, Wahaha, and Jinmailang appeared. To quickly penetrate the market, based on the original traditional wholesale markets, the FMCG regional agency system gradually formed, and distributors who made a living by brand agency began to appear.
To this day, the function of distributors has not fundamentally changed, but their living environment is no longer comparable to before. In addition to facing competition from rival products, the rise of B2B and B2C e-commerce has also weakened the competitiveness of distributors to some extent. Just as "what defeated Master Kong was not Uni-President but Meituan and Ele.me," beverage brands also face cross-industry competition from milk tea and coffee.
"In the past, goods were never hard to sell; now I worry about not being able to sell them," is Wang Lei's biggest feeling about the current business. "Being a distributor is essentially a startup business. The more you do, the more you earn; the less you do, the less you earn. It's that simple. No one looks at how many hours you work a day. If you can't sell the goods, everything else is nonsense." In Wang Lei's view, there is never any 996 in daily work, only the chicken-soup-for-the-soul saying: **Effort is the peak season; without effort, it's always the off-season.**
This article does not intend to advocate the 996 work schedule, but rather hopes to show, through several cases, the most authentic living conditions of FMCG workers represented by Zhang Jie, Li Qiang, and Wang Lei. Always pay tribute to the FMCG workers fighting on the front lines!
(All names in the article are pseudonyms.)
**-END-**


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