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HSBC’s Jonny Frostick should serve as a wake-up call for workers and employees about the dangers of job exhaustion – especially in Asia where financial firms are looking to expand and the culture of excessive workaholism remains strong.

This week, 45-year-old HSBC executive Jonny Frostick made a bold move of self-expression and worker activism in a viral post that described a heart attack followed by immediate thoughts about an unfitting subject: work. 

«I needed to meet with my manager tomorrow, this isn’t convenient,» the LinkedIn post read, detailing Frostick’s first thought despite undergoing a near-death experience.

«This happened to me, this could happen to you,» Frostick said separately after the event in a «Bloomberg» report. «You need to change that.»

Financial Sector Culture

According to Frostick, his views should not reflect poorly on his employer but rather on the industry at large, citing strong resonation – his LinkedIn post has attracted nearly 250,000 reactions – as evidence of the pervasiveness of overworking in the financial sector.

Many will have recalled the tragic death of 21-year old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern Moritz Erhardt who in 2013 fell victim to an epileptic seizure after working consecutively for 72 hours. Juergen Schroeder, Erhardt’s development officer at the time, said at an inquest that there was competitive pride amongst interns to work long hours but stressed that this was not necessary.

«It’s not only at Bank of America, it’s the case at most banks in London,» Schroeder said. «It’s the case in Germany and other parts of the world.»

Death by Overwork: Asia

One of those other parts where death by overwork remains very relevant today is Asia, especially in the northern region. In fact, its strong prevalence led Japan to coin and popularize a term around the 1980s for this exact kind of death – karoshi – and other neighboring countries followed suit such as South Korea (gwarosa) and China (guolaosi).

The severity of the issue has led to regulation catered to the phenomenon such as specific criteria for deaths that can be attributed to overwork. In the case of Japan, part of that criteria includes 80 hours of monthly overtime prior to death.

And many cases are not linked directly to physical exhaustion alone. In 2015, 24 year-old Matsuri Takahashi was the victim of a headline suicide just eight months after taking on a full-time job with major Japanese advertising agency Dentsu straight out of college. She had jumped to her death from a company dorm on Christmas Day after reportedly working over 100 hours of monthly overtime and getting less than two hours of daily sleep. 

Death by Overwork: China

Meanwhile, a plethora of financial firms – and their employees – are eyeing opportunities from a $54 trillion market in China which also happens to be amongst the latest and most aggressive adopters in the culture of overworking. 

In January this year, e-commerce platform Pinduoduo was accused of forcing intensive overtime on workers after the death of a 22-year old surnamed Zhang sparked widespread criticism. 

Many netizens expressed sympathy for Zhang’s misfortune and attributed the death to a popular labor practice in China: the «9-9-6» working hour system. 

«9-9-6»