Return to overwork

• Published date: 08 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate U.S. economist, visited Korea in 2018 when the country shortened its legal workweek from 68 hours to 52.

"Fifty-two hours a week?" Krugman asked back in surprise at a talk show in Seoul. "It's amazing, thinking Korea is also an industrialized country … that is not good for a balanced life."

What will the pundit say to hear Korea is returning to 69 hours a week?

On Monday, the government announced measures to "reform" the 52-hour workweek system by allowing "more flexibility and choice" in work hours. Under the new system, employers can add 29 hours a week of overtime, instead of the current 12, to the basic 40 hours.

The current system is somewhat rigid, especially for some workers and industries. For instance, employees in IT or entertainment companies should work intensively for a period and have a long rest afterward. A survey by a chaebol lobby group also showed half of workers in their 20s and 30s want to focus their labor on three or four days each week.

"The new system will benefit workers with various working hour options, such as a four-day workweek and a sabbatical month," Labor Minister Lee Jeong-shik said at a press conference. Lee was referring to the new "working hours savings system," in which a worker can save overtime work hours as paid leave days and use them consecutively with paid leave days, extending holidays up to one month.

So far, so good, it seems.

However, as with most other policies, the Yoon Suk Yeol administration's labor reform plan ignores reality completely.

Currently, workers at only four out of 10 companies spend even their annual leave in its entirety. The other 60 percent remain content with weeklong summer vacations. Workers cannot use their legal holidays fully as they feel sorry for their coworkers in perennially understaffed offices. Add to this the low unionization rate of 14 percent in Korea ? the law is one thing, and the reality is another in Korea's labor playground tilted to the advantage of employers.

Even under the 52-hour workweek system, Koreans worked 1,915 hours in 2021, the...