12-Hour Shifts in IT: Is This How We Treat the Minds That Built Digital India?
Nidhi | Jun 20, 2025, 17:39 IST
( Image credit : Pexels, Timeslife )
The Karnataka government’s proposal to extend IT sector work hours to 12 per day has drawn strong criticism from trade unions and mental health advocates. As India’s digital workforce faces mounting pressure, this policy could transform how we view labor, rights, and growth in the tech economy. This article explores what’s really at stake.
The Karnataka government’s proposed amendment to the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961, aims to legally permit 10-hour workdays and up to 12 hours a day with overtime — increasing the quarterly overtime cap from 50 to 144 hours.
That may sound like a minor legal change, but the implications go much further. Once something like this becomes law, it shifts the definition of “normal” in the workplace. It opens the door for companies to design job expectations around these extended hours — not as exceptions, but as standards. And when that happens, it’s no longer a choice for the employee — it becomes an expectation you comply with, or quietly suffer under. 
India’s IT sector was never supposed to resemble traditional manufacturing. It attracted millions precisely because it promised mental work over physical labor, flexibility over rigidity, and autonomy over supervision.
But this shift treats software engineers, digital designers, and analysts no differently than factory workers — with productivity measured by time clocked instead of value created. It reduces a sector based on problem-solving and innovation into one governed by hours and headcounts.
What's most concerning is this: if white-collar intellectual labor is being forced into blue-collar structures, what message are we sending to every student preparing to enter this field? 
Global data — from Japan to Germany to the US — consistently shows that longer workdays correlate with diminished returns in both productivity and well-being. In fact, working beyond 8–9 hours a day regularly leads to decision fatigue, mental fog, and slower creative thinking.
The irony is clear: we are increasing hours in a sector where output depends not on physical presence, but on clarity, insight, and problem-solving ability — all of which deteriorate with overwork. The tech world doesn’t run on time — it runs on attention. And this policy undermines the very cognitive capacity companies depend on. Mental health isn’t just an HR issue anymore — it’s an infrastructure crisis waiting to happen. The State Emotional Wellbeing Report 2024 revealed that 90% of corporate workers under 25 face anxiety, much of it due to long hours, performance pressure, and a blurred line between work and life.
In IT, the problem is worse. Always-on culture, late-night global meetings, unrealistic deadlines — these already push employees to their limit. A 12-hour legal shift doesn’t simply stretch the workday. It sends the signal that rest, recovery, and mental health are optional. And when that happens, the cost is not just personal — it’s organizational. Burned-out workers don’t build strong companies. 
What happens when a company can legally operate in two back-to-back 12-hour shifts with fewer staff? It eliminates the need to hire more people, especially for mid-level or rotational roles. That means fewer jobs, less career mobility, and more pressure on those already employed to cover the expanding workload.
Trade unions like KITU (Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union) have rightly warned that this policy paves the way for companies to cut headcounts while appearing more “efficient” on paper. But efficiency for whom? For employers trying to reduce payroll — or for workers who now have to do more with less? When the system rewards long hours, people begin to believe that time equals value. But that’s not how minds work. Human beings aren’t bandwidth.
More hours may result in visible activity, but it often hides invisible costs — strained relationships, missed milestones, mental fatigue, and the slow erosion of personal identity. It reduces professionals into numbers: hours billed, tasks completed, seats filled.
And when that becomes the metric of success, we lose sight of the human being behind the screen. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh — two of India’s biggest tech contributors — are now moving in the same direction. If this becomes the new “norm,” it’s only a matter of time before other states follow suit.
But here’s the problem: once labor reforms start favouring corporations at the expense of workers, reversing that trend becomes nearly impossible. Laws may be flexible on paper, but culture isn’t. Once we train a generation to believe overwork is the price of employment, it becomes embedded — not just in policy, but in expectations, mindsets, and workplace culture. India has every reason to be proud of its digital workforce. It’s built a $200-billion IT industry, exports to 100+ countries, and trains some of the world’s top talent. But this growth wasn’t built on compliance — it was built on ambition, innovation, and a promise of better work-life quality than traditional industries.
This new policy threatens to reverse that promise. Because in trying to make our economy faster and more “competitive,” we may be designing one that grows GDP but breaks people.
And that is the real question: Are we creating a nation of workers — or a nation that works for its people?
That may sound like a minor legal change, but the implications go much further. Once something like this becomes law, it shifts the definition of “normal” in the workplace. It opens the door for companies to design job expectations around these extended hours — not as exceptions, but as standards. And when that happens, it’s no longer a choice for the employee — it becomes an expectation you comply with, or quietly suffer under.
The Knowledge Economy Is Being Governed Like a Factory Floor
Keir Starmer Visits Apprentices At State of the Art Manufacturing Facility.
( Image credit : AP )
But this shift treats software engineers, digital designers, and analysts no differently than factory workers — with productivity measured by time clocked instead of value created. It reduces a sector based on problem-solving and innovation into one governed by hours and headcounts.
What's most concerning is this: if white-collar intellectual labor is being forced into blue-collar structures, what message are we sending to every student preparing to enter this field?
Longer Hours Won’t Make Us More Competitive — Just More Exhausted
Employee
( Image credit : Pexels )
The irony is clear: we are increasing hours in a sector where output depends not on physical presence, but on clarity, insight, and problem-solving ability — all of which deteriorate with overwork. The tech world doesn’t run on time — it runs on attention. And this policy undermines the very cognitive capacity companies depend on.
Burnout Has Already Started — We’re Just Ignoring It
In IT, the problem is worse. Always-on culture, late-night global meetings, unrealistic deadlines — these already push employees to their limit. A 12-hour legal shift doesn’t simply stretch the workday. It sends the signal that rest, recovery, and mental health are optional. And when that happens, the cost is not just personal — it’s organizational. Burned-out workers don’t build strong companies.
12-Hour Shifts Could Mean Fewer Jobs, Not More
Indian workforce facing chronic illness, poor mental health, burnout_ Report.
( Image credit : IANS )
What happens when a company can legally operate in two back-to-back 12-hour shifts with fewer staff? It eliminates the need to hire more people, especially for mid-level or rotational roles. That means fewer jobs, less career mobility, and more pressure on those already employed to cover the expanding workload.
Trade unions like KITU (Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union) have rightly warned that this policy paves the way for companies to cut headcounts while appearing more “efficient” on paper. But efficiency for whom? For employers trying to reduce payroll — or for workers who now have to do more with less?
This Move Reduces People to a Metric
More hours may result in visible activity, but it often hides invisible costs — strained relationships, missed milestones, mental fatigue, and the slow erosion of personal identity. It reduces professionals into numbers: hours billed, tasks completed, seats filled.
And when that becomes the metric of success, we lose sight of the human being behind the screen.
The Wrong Precedent at the Wrong Time
But here’s the problem: once labor reforms start favouring corporations at the expense of workers, reversing that trend becomes nearly impossible. Laws may be flexible on paper, but culture isn’t. Once we train a generation to believe overwork is the price of employment, it becomes embedded — not just in policy, but in expectations, mindsets, and workplace culture.
What Kind of Economy Are We Building — One That Grows, or One That Grinds?
This new policy threatens to reverse that promise. Because in trying to make our economy faster and more “competitive,” we may be designing one that grows GDP but breaks people.
And that is the real question: Are we creating a nation of workers — or a nation that works for its people?