(Yicai) Aug. 8 -- Chinese carmaker Chery Automobile has denied recent online rumors about illegal overtime work.

Chery Auto adopts a ‘3-4-5 strategy,’ which means three employees should perform the tasks of five with a remuneration of four, said Jin Yibo, a spokesperson for the Wuhan-based company. This strategy is not illegal overtime nor a cost-cutting move but a performance management goal to enhance efficiency and quality, he added.

According to a screenshot recently circulating online, Chery Auto proposed adopting a ‘3-4-5 strategy,’ which would force employees to work overtime. A staffer at the carmaker had earlier said they were working overtime until so late that he could never see the sun setting.

Given the fierce competition, what Chery Auto does is to abandon the crude strategies of the past and improve overtime efficiency, Jin pointed out.

Chery Auto has paid salaries on the 15th of every month since its inception 27 years ago, even when in tight liquidity moments, according to Jin. Moreover, the firm never carried out massive layoffs, not even when the market was weak.

In the past 10 years, Chery Auto generally raised employee salaries for eight years to ensure that the living standard of employees would not decline amid rising prices. In addition, the company recruited over 3,000 fresh college graduates in the past, nearly 90 percent of whom are still there. It hired over 3,400 graduates this year.

Chery Auto sold a record of over 1.1 million cars in the first half of the year, up 48 percent from a year earlier. Of them, 44,851 were new energy vehicles, up 231 percent. Exports rose 23 percent to 97,034 units in the period.

Chery Auto made the Fortune Global 500 list released earlier this month for the first time, ranking 385th.

Editor: Futura Costaglione