South Korea: Potential Fix in 52 Hours a Week

The South Korean government found that the current legal maximum of 52 hours a week did not meet the needs of businesses.

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In South Korea, working time is currently set at 52 hours per week: 40 legal hours to which an additional 12 hours can be added. It is a 2018 law that established this cap to prevent employee burnout.

However, the current Korean president, Yoon Sok-yul, wants to change this rule, which he considers inappropriate “given the business needs of various industries, especially to deal with workloads when demand is high or in peak season,” reports The Korea Times. Newspaper. Therefore, the Korean government wants to fix this weekly working time so that it can meet the needs of different companies.

According to Le Figaro, which transmits this reform project, employees can perform up to 29 hours of overtime per week, a total weekly duration of 69 hours. In turn, employees can take advantage of more vacations during the year, during slower periods.

But the Korean government may face some difficulties in its approach, because workers’ coordination groups have clearly expressed their opposition to these new policy proposals, notes the Korea Times.

Thus, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions issued a statement describing this proposal as a “retrospective review of the law which would leave the decision on wages and working hours to the employers.”

With information from Ouest France