Do all companies want to force their workers to work overtime if possible?

Last century, the communist governments blamed the capitalists exploited their workers and forced them to work overtime without paying fair wages. Nowadays, such claim gains its market in many developed countries with enormous welfare systems that their governments make complicated regulations and laws to restrict employers from using their employees “improperly”. However, in today’s China, where has a communist government, there are some cases of death from overwork, but the public opinion seems a bit brutal as some people believe it is the risk that has to be taken in order to stand out of the crowd.

Standing from companies’ point, is it their best stategries to force their workers to work as much as possible? In some ways, yes. As long as the gains are greater than the losses, the companies would be always willing to expand their productions, in other ways, asking their workers to work more. However, in the market, the demand is not infinite, there is a boundary due to certain boundaries (such as information, transport and etc); therefore, companies will not want to expand productions without limits. In addition, when more companies gain more market power and are able to set market prices, based to some basic economics, we know that they are not interested at setting supply at the market equilibrium and they tend to create an excess of demand in the market. Such market strategy will limit the use of labour.

Moreover, the use of labour does not only depend on the production side (the demand of labour), it also depends on the supply of labour. People need to be willing to be hired. To compensate people’s losses from work and reward qualities that companies require, the companies have to pay extra incomes. Therefore, if they want more from their workers, they have to give more to their workers either immediately or in the future.

Therefore, combining the demand and supply, there is a limit for the use of labour, this implies that companies will never use labours above a certain level.