No standard-working-hours law — overtime pay comes down to employer self-restraint

The contract says nine to six, but the boss hands over an urgent job just before knock-off and wants it by the next morning; refuse, and it counts as defying instructions, with a warning letter one step away. Local office workers report that Hong Kong has neither standard-working-hours legislation nor statutory overtime pay, so there is no legal obstacle to an employer demanding unpaid overtime, and employees hold little bargaining leverage.

That legislative vacuum leaves complaints with nothing to grip: the labour authorities can hardly step into a demand that is lawful in itself, so in practice resignation is the only route left — and those with a mortgage and a family to feed cannot even take that step. The gap also lets industry custom carry on down the generations, with the long hours the previous cohort endured demanded of the next as a matter of course, so that whether overtime is compensated ends up resting on an individual employer's self-restraint rather than on any system.