Rishi Sunak’s billionaire father-in-law sparks backlash by suggesting young people should work 70-hour weeks

IT billionaire NR Narayana Murthy has sparked a raging debate in India after he said young people needed to work for 70 hours a week to raise productivity.

The co-founder of Infosys, who is also the father-in-law of UK’s prime minister Rishi Sunak, said during a YouTube interview that India needed “highly determined, extremely disciplined and extremely hardworking” youngsters.

He went on to say that the youth should be ready to put in long hours at work – comments that led to a massive online backlash.

“You know, this is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War,” Mr Murthy told Mohandas Pai, the former CFO of Infosys, during the chat shared on YouTube.

“Somehow our youth have the habit of taking not-so-desirable habits from the West and then not helping the country,” Mr Murthy said. “India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world.”

He continued: “We need to be disciplined and improve our work productivity. I think unless we do that, what can poor government do? And every government is as good as the culture of the people. And our culture has to change to that of highly determined, extremely disciplined and extremely hard-working people.”

He said: “Our youngsters must say – ‘this is my country. I want to work 70 hours a week.’”

In several countries, the standard work week typically comprises 35 to 40 hours – nine hours per day for five days a week. In India, people in several sectors work for six days a week.

Many online commentators disagreed with Mr Murthy’s comments on the number of hours a person should be working every week. However, CEOs of some companies supported him.

“Totally agree with Mr Murthy’s views. It’s not our moment to work less and entertain ourselves. Rather it’s our moment to go all in and build in one generation what other countries have built over many generations,” Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO of cab-hailing app Ola, said in a post on X.

“Million-dollar question is – are companies ready to pay more for the extra hours taken from the life of employees?” wrote one user on X. “How their personal life, family life & social life will get affected by such schedules, need to be kept in mind before milking employees for growth of the company.”

Another said: “NM [Narayana Murthy] wants the youth to work for 11 hours and 45 minutes per day for 6 days a week, at a time when AI [artificial intelligence] is reducing human intervention in everyday life. He should also opine on where the jobs will come from.”

X user Saad Jamal pointed out: “While such dedication can fast-track learning and productivity, it must be driven by genuine passion and a thirst for knowledge. In the digital age, it’s about working smarter, not just harder. If young professionals aren’t enjoying what they do or gaining fresh insights, those extra hours might not be as valuable.”

Ronnie Screwvala, founder of a startup called upGrad and a Bollywood film producer, disagreed with Mr Murthy: “Boosting productivity isn’t just about working longer hours. It’s about getting better at what you do – upskilling, having a positive work environment and fair pay for the work done.”

He wrote on X: “Quality of work done > clocking in more hours.”

According to several research findings, productivity and focus tend to decline after a certain number of hours per day and this can vary from person to person.

Jack Ma of Alibaba in 2019 endorsed China’s 996 work culture – working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week – and spoke of the “rewards of hard work”.

At the time, the state-run newspaper People’s Daily wrote in a commentary: “Advocating hard work and commitment does not mean forcing overtime. The mandatory enforcement of 996 overtime culture not only reflects the arrogance of business managers but also is unfair and impractical.”

Recently as a rebellion against the 996 culture, Chinese youths started a trend called “tang ping” or “lying flat”. In 2021, the trend peaked when young Chinese people participated in the online social protest in droves, meant to express their disillusionment with hustle culture by “lying flat”.

The trend of “tang ping” was meant to reject the culture of overwork that forces Chinese youngsters to work for longer hours with little reward.

In the post-pandemic world, workers were also “quiet-quitting” their jobs – which meant they were unlikely to go “above and beyond” and establishing firm boundaries between their personal time and office hours.

Economic Policy Institute, in a report published last year in October, said that the “CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460 per cent since 1978” and that “CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021”.

In India, a report published last year in May by Crisil Research said that “CEOs get paid 130 times more than a regular employee in India Inc”.