South Korea’s plans to spice up the work week from 52 to a most 69 hours fills SM Chang, a 47-year-old employee at a bank card firm, with dread.

Working extra time was the norm till the federal government launched the 52-hour work week 5 years in the past. “These days, our workplace computer systems are turned off mechanically shortly after six. I’ve to get permission from my boss six hours earlier than working extra time,” stated Chang, who didn’t need her full identify to be printed. “I actually don’t need to return to these outdated days with out evenings.”

However longer work days could also be on the playing cards after the conservative administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took workplace final Might, introduced plans to extend the permitted weekly hours to virtually twice France’s 35-hour week.

Proponents of the plan argue it will probably supply an answer to the issue posed by an ageing inhabitants and a declining workforce, however even in a rustic identified for its workaholic tradition, it has prompted a backlash.

Below a system launched in 2018, the South Korean work week entails 40 hours of normal work and 12 hours of extra time. Companies that breach the foundations can face penalties.

The proposed change permits employers to rely extra time on a month-to-month, quarterly and yearly foundation. The federal government argues that it’ll allow employees to financial institution extra extra time in busy intervals, which they will later take again as depart.

The labour ministry stated the present weekly restrict restricted the rights of corporations and employees to decide on their working hours. In Korea’s ageing society, it argued that prolonged intervals of depart would enable extra household time, even increase the nation’s falling fertility price.

South Korea’s whole fertility price fell under the so-called substitute start price of two.1 births per girl in 1984 and has been falling ever since, which means that fewer and fewer contemporary graduates are becoming a member of the workforce. The speed is now the bottom on the planet at 0.78.

“We will resolve critical social issues like quick ageing and low start charges by permitting girls to decide on their working hours extra flexibly,” stated labour minister Lee Jung-sik.

Enterprise associations have welcomed the federal government plan for permitting “administration and employees to spice up effectivity by selecting working hours”. Producers, builders and IT service suppliers have referred to as for extra flexibility in working hours, citing employees shortages and difficulties in assembly deadlines.

However labour unions have blasted the “poisonous” plan, calling it an “anachronistic thought”. “The federal government is forcing employees into ultra-long hours of intensive work,” stated the Federation of Korean Commerce Unions.

The president faces opposition in parliament too, the place the nation’s principal opposition social gathering has vowed to dam the reform, noting a excessive prevalence of labor accidents and deaths because of over work. There have been 739 claims for state compensation because of deaths from overwork in 2021, labour ministry information suggests. Almost 40 per cent of those claims have been authorised.

The nation’s workaholic tradition contributed to its fast industrialisation over the previous half century and helped rework it into the world’s tenth largest financial system.

South Koreans put in a median of 1,915 hours in 2021, the fifth-most globally after Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and Chile, in response to the OECD. It was 199 hours greater than the OECD common.

However many individuals battle to make ends meet and rising property costs have put housing out of attain to many. On the similar time, there’s excessive social strain to succeed.

“Lengthy hours of labor at low wages remains to be rampant within the nation whereas strain to remain forward stays sturdy amongst white-collar employees,” stated Choi Min, a labour rights advocate and medical physician. “However a pointy enhance in working hours and depth in a brief interval poses critical well being dangers, usually leading to deaths from overwork.”

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Bae Kyu-shik, a labour knowledgeable, means that the precedence needs to be boosting productiveness, quite than growing hours. “The federal government plan can have very totally different results from its expectations by going in opposition to younger individuals’s want for a work-life steadiness,” he stated.

In follow, employees doubt they may have the ability to take prolonged depart. In keeping with a authorities survey, employees at solely 40 per cent of Korean corporations have been in a position to take their full annual depart in 2020.

SJ Cho, a 43-year-old worker at one of many nation’s greatest conglomerates, remembers as soon as working for 10 days throughout his vacation.

“Till the 52-hour work week restrict was launched, we couldn’t depart the workplace till our boss did as a result of they might consider our work ethics by this,” he stated. “It’s a extremely aggressive surroundings. If I take a month of trip, I guess they may simply take away my desk.”

Regardless of the 52-hour restrict, Baek, who didn’t need to give her full identify, usually works into the evening at an ecommerce begin up. “A small firm like ours all the time lacks employees. I simply endure, hoping issues will get higher as soon as our firm grows huge. But when the federal government offers a mistaken sign by reducing the hurdle, it simply makes me surrender such hope.”