South Korea abandons the 69-hour weekly work plan after the youth revolution

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by Steve Janowski

March 20, 2023 | 12:59 p.m

South Korea has backed away from a plan to increase the work week to 69 hours after a near-total revolt by the nation’s youth.

5 years in the past, South Korea Decreasing the variety of hours its geeks are allowed to work To 52 in complete – 40 common hours, then 12 hours of paid additional time.

However earlier this month, a conservative authorities within the nation Tried to boost the lid after Stress from enterprise teams that need to improve productivityAccording to CNN Enterprise.

The youth had none of it, The Washington Submit reported.

President Yoon Seok Yul’s recognition instantly plummeted amongst Millennials and Gen Z employees: Simply 4 days after his administration introduced the plan, his disapproval charges amongst these age teams jumped to 79 and 66%, respectively, based on the Washington Submit.

The indignant backlash compelled the federal government to rethink the proposal.

“The president finds 60-plus hour work weeks unrealistic, even together with additional time,” The Washington Submit quoted Ahn Sang-hoon, a senior presidential adviser, as saying. “The federal government will hear extra rigorously to who’s views [Millennials and Generation Z] Staff.”

South Koreans are already comparatively workaholics, logging a median of 1,915 hours per employee per 12 months, based on the Group for Financial Co-operation and Improvement.

Solely folks in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico labored extra in 2021, the group mentioned. America averaged about 1,791 hours per 12 months by comparability.

South Korea started limiting working hours in 2018 after lots of died from overwork the earlier 12 months. By week.

The phenomenon – identified within the nation as “guaroza” or “dying by overwork” – included deaths from coronary heart assaults, strokes, industrial accidents or sleep-deprived driving, The Week reported.

Some South Koreans instructed the Washington Submit that they might nonetheless go above and past the federal government’s cap so as to not obtain compensation. However few had been eager to formally return to longer work weeks.

“We’ve already felt the advantages of shorter weeks,” Lee Jong-soon, a professor of labor relations on the Graduate Faculty of Labor Research at Korea College in Seoul, instructed The Washington Submit. “Why would anybody need to return?”