We do not give political opinions here, but as everything Korean interests us, from time to time we happen to talk about the daily life of Koreans and today we want to talk about working hours.
We had already realized that pressure on South Korean “employees” was a hot topic, but hadn’t realized just how much, until we came across an article that told us that weekly legal working hours in Korea was 52 hours!
It was reduced in 2018 from 68 hours to 52 hours (40 hours + 12 hours overtime), and they can work Saturdays and Sundays without any union coming to tell them that they are happily exploding the “normal” ceilings or that they are exploited by their “capitalist bosses”.
Reading this we are ashamed to say how many hours some people want to reduce the working time in France; knowing all the same that a small French boss works more than 52 hours a week to manage his company.
As in France, Koreans were recently invited to vote to choose their president, and you know what?
The newly elected president released his first reform. It allows Koreans to work… 120 hours a week!
For ” a better balance between professional life and private life ” it seems.
A week of 168 hours in total leaves an employee 7 hours a day to sleep and eat!
We don’t really know if they will have time to breathe…
COURAGE & COMBATIVITY are two of the precepts of their national sport.
They will need it and we wish them good luck because they haven’t finished tying their belts.
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“The spirit of fastening your belt to resume the fight”
Credit: Korean Cultural Center in Paris (Korea weeks)