“Before,” says Lim Hyung-kyu, a retired Samsung Electronics executive now 70, “my weeks were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday, Friday.”
Lim joined Samsung, South Korea’s largest company, in 1976 and rose through the ranks to become chief technology officer. For much of his 30-plus years at Samsung, working weekends was normal and legal under the country’s labor laws. “I didn’t mind it,” Lim says. “For me, it was fun.”
Things are different now. South Korean labor laws limit working hours to 52 a week: 40 regular hours and up to 12 overtime hours. Weekends are often banned, and younger employees are more conscious of work-life balance than their parents or grandparents.
But in recent months, some influential South Korean companies have asked their executives to work longer hours, in some cases telling them to come into the office six days a week. Some in the South Korean business world predict that lower-ranking employees and managers at smaller companies will feel pressure to follow suit.
“It’s a sign that it’s still acceptable to work six days a week in South Korea,” said Kim Seol, a representative of the Youth Community Union, a labor group representing workers aged 15 to 39.
Pressure on workers, especially young ones, can be intense in South Korea, which has a shrinking and aging population with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Fears about job security and rising costs of housing, child care and education have discouraged working-age Koreans from having children, contributing to a demographic crisis looming over the economy.
In South Korea, the five-day workweek is only one generation old, introduced by labour legislation in 2004, starting with the public sector and larger companies before spreading to smaller businesses. The legal limit of 52 hours a week is also relatively new: it was introduced in 2018, a reduction from 68 hours a week.
For much of South Korea’s postwar history, a time of rapid growth and reconstruction, workers were expected to be in the office Monday through Saturday. “Back then, people had a hard time getting by,” says Lim, a retired Samsung executive. “Helping the company grow meant helping the country and, by extension, yourself.”
Samsung, like South Korea’s other multinational giants, has followed the country’s surge from poverty and war into an advanced, high-tech economy. It was founded in the late 1930s as a vegetable and dried fish store, moved into making home appliances and other electronics in the late 1960s, and is now a global leader in semiconductors, smartphones and other technologies, with more than 200,000 employees.
Companies now asking executives to work longer hours have described the measures as a response to a business slowdown, citing a temporary crisis or an emergency. Growth in South Korea has been uneven, with weak consumer spending denting corporate profits. The economy unexpectedly contracted last quarter.
At HD Hyundai Oilbank, the refinery and gas station unit of an industrial conglomerate, about 40 executives began coming into the office on weekends in recent weeks to “respond to the crisis caused by sluggish business,” according to a company official. HD Hyundai Oilbank’s sales and profits fell sharply last year due to falling oil prices.
In July, SK On, the battery and electric vehicle unit of a tech group, announced it would go into “emergency mode,” freezing executive pay and making them start work earlier.
“Managers and leaders will lead by example and shoulder the heavy responsibility of navigating a crisis,” SK On CEO Lee Seok-hee said at a staff meeting, according to a company statement. The company, which has lost money in recent quarters, slowed production and warned of “unfavorable market conditions” in an April financial report.
A Samsung Electronics spokesman said that while it was not official company policy, “executives can voluntarily choose to work on weekends based on their professional needs.” The conglomerate has been in the midst of a dispute with its largest union, whose members said last week they would return to work following a strike over pay and working conditions.
Trade union groups say the “crisis” and “emergency” measures are mostly for show. “There is a cultural mindset that the longer you work, the better the result,” says Lee Sang Yoon, deputy policy director of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, one of the country’s largest union groups. “This is outdated.”
Although calls to work weekends only apply to the executive levels of these companies, other employees may feel pressured to do the same.
“South Korea’s business culture is a pyramid,” says Kim of the Union of Youth Communities, with the top being the big companies that set the tone for the country’s business culture.
What is written in labor laws also does not always reflect the actual experience of employees. South Korean workers are among the longest-working in advanced economies, about 100 hours more per year than the average American worker, according to 2022 data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Eun Sung, a consultant in her 20s living in Seoul, said she often worked six days a week when she was on a project.
“Going out at 2 or 3 a.m. is decent,” he said. He only sees his friends once every few months, and his health has been affected by lack of sleep, he added. Although he enjoys consulting, he would consider moving to a country where he could better balance his work and family life.
According to Ryu Jae Kang, head of the policy unit of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, some companies have ways of getting employees to work longer hours. They may pay fixed wages that already incorporate overtime, and not monitor all hours for all types of work.
The legal reduction of working hours over the years has been a sign of South Korea’s development and people’s tendency to focus more on their personal lives, says Joon Han, a sociology professor at Yonsei University.
Last year, President Yoon Suk Yeol, seen as pro-business, proposed raising the workweek to 69 hours. He faced backlash from public opinion and opposition political parties, and the president withdrew the plan.
Some advocate shorter working hours. A four-day workweek was part of the programmes of some politicians running in the parliamentary elections in April. In June, the government set up a conciliation committee to study more flexible working practices.
“Times are changing,” says Han of Yonsei University. “Young people no longer want to be slaves to their companies.”
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