Asian Tech Press (Feb 23) -- It was rumored on Wednesday that an outsourced employee of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor died from alleged overwork.

Honor, once a Huawei-owned brand, was officially spun off from the U.S.-blacklisted telecom giant in November 2020 to address shortages of its mobile chips.

One informant said that his friend, an employee outsourced to Honor by Huawei partner iSoftStone, died suddenly.

The person said that his friend "died suddenly in a rented room when he was not feeling well after working endlessly overtime every day at Honor."

He also said that when negotiating with iSoftStone, it refused to pay a high amount of compensation on the grounds of sudden death at home. Eventually, the outsourcing company only paid 200,000 yuan ($3,166) for condolences, while Honor paid nothing.

The Huawei spinoff has no response to the romor for the time being.