Sydney public relations powerhouse Roxy Jacenko has slammed “lazy and entitled” Australian workers for putting a work-life balance before their careers.

The divisive multimillionaire and founder of PR company Sweaty Betty claimed Aussie workers had a reputation for their “nine-to-five mentality” and could learn from the Chinese who worked “all hours of the day”.

In an interview with Britain’s Daily Mail to mark the launch of her company 18 Communications, which helps Australian brands communicate with Chinese consumers, Ms Jacenko said Australians could learn a lot from their Chinese counterparts.

“My emails to Chinese partners are answered instantly at all hours of the day,” she said. “That’s how it should be.”

The 38-year-old mother of two started her PR firm aged 24 and previously worked as a receptionist and at McDonald’s.

Despite her wealth, she said she would make her children get jobs to try to teach them the value of hard work.

Ms Jacenko said she credited her success to the long hours she put in and claimed today’s young workers expected too much, too soon.

“Work-life balance is wonderful but unrealistic,” she said.

“If I had that all perfect, then I would not be where I am today.

“I work seven days a week because I want to exceed expectations — good enough is not good enough for me.

“Young people expect to be on 100k and refuse to do menial tasks.

“But you have to learn from the bottom up, you have to do the mail and file documents.

“You’re not going to walk in and be an executive.”

Ms Jacenko said that schools needed to take responsibility for encouraging children to work harder and even suggested young people offer to work for free to get their career start.

“It needs to start from a career advisory perspective — perhaps 16-year-olds should do two days of work experience per week over six months,” she said.

“They need more experience of the working world and part-time work needs to be encouraged.”