Declaring ‘crisis’, South Korean firms tell managers to work six days a week

SEOUL – “Back in the day, my weeks were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday, Friday,” said Mr Lim Hyung-kyu, a retired Samsung Electronics executive now in his 70s.

Mr Lim joined Samsung, South Korea’s largest company, in 1976 and rose through the ranks to chief technology officer. For much of his 30-plus years at Samsung, working on the weekends was normal – and legal under the nation’s labour laws. “I didn’t mind,” Mr Lim said. “It was fun for me.”

Things are different now. South Korean labour laws cap working hours to 52 a week: 40 standard hours with up to 12 for overtime. Weekends are generally considered off-limits, and younger employees are mindful of their work-life balance in a way their parents or grandparents were not.

But over the past few months, some influential South Korean companies have told executives to work longer hours, in some cases telling them to come to the office six days a week. Some people in South Korean businesses are predicting that lower-ranked employees and managers at smaller companies will feel pressure to follow suit.

“It’s a signal that in South Korea, working six days a week is still acceptable,” said Mr Kim Seol, a representative of the Youth Community Union, a labour group that represents workers between the ages of 15 and 39.

The pressure on workers, especially young workers, can be intense in South Korea, which has a shrinking, ageing population with one of the world’s lowest fertility rates.

Fears about job security and the rising costs of housing, childcare and education have discouraged working-age Koreans from having children, contributing to a demographic crisis that looms over the economy.

In South Korea, the five-day workweek is only a generation old, introduced by labour laws in 2004, starting with the public sector and larger companies before spreading to smaller firms. A 52-hour legal limit on the workweek is also relatively new: It was introduced in 2018, a reduction from 68 hours per week.

For much of South Korea’s post-war history, a time of rapid growth and reconstruction, workers were expected to be in the office from Monday to Saturday. “Back then, it was hard for people to get by,” said Mr Lim, the retired Samsung executive. “Helping the company grow meant helping the country and, by extension, yourself.”

Samsung, like South Korea’s other multinational giants, has tracked the country’s burst of development from poverty and war to an advanced, high-tech economy. It was founded in the late 1930s as a shop selling vegetables and dried fish, started making appliances and other electronics in the late 1960s, and is now a world leader in semiconductors, smartphones and other technologies with more than 200,000 employees.

The companies now calling for executives to work longer hours have described the measures as a response to a downturn in business, citing a temporary crisis or emergency. Growth in South Korea has been patchy, with weak consumer spending putting a dent in corporate earnings. The economy unexpectedly shrank in the last quarter.

At HD Hyundai Oilbank, the refinery and petrol station unit of an industrial conglomerate, about 40 executives started coming to the office on weekends in recent weeks to “respond to the crisis caused by sluggish business conditions”, according to a company representative. HD Hyundai Oilbank’s sales and profit dropped sharply in 2023 because of falling oil prices.

In July, SK On, the battery and electric vehicle unit of a technology group, announced that it would go into “emergency mode”, freezing executives’ salaries and making them start their workdays earlier.

“Executives and leaders will lead by example and take on the large responsibility of navigating through a crisis,” Mr Lee Seok-hee, SK On’s chief executive, said at a staff meeting, according to a company statement. The company, which has lost money in recent quarters, slowed production and warned of “unfavourable market conditions” in a financial report in April.

A spokesperson for Samsung said that while it was not official company policy, “executives may voluntarily choose to work on weekends according to their professional needs”. The conglomerate has been in the middle of a dispute with its largest union, whose members last week said they would go back to work after a strike over pay and working conditions.

Labour groups claim the “crisis” and “emergency” measures are mostly for show.

“There is a cultural mindset here that the longer someone works, the better the outcome,” said policy deputy director Lee Sang-yoon of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), one of the largest labour groups in the nation. “This is outdated.”

Although the calls for weekend work apply only to the executive tier of these companies, other employees may feel pressure to do the same.

“Business culture in South Korea is a pyramid,” Mr Kim said, with large companies at the top setting the tone for the country’s business culture.

What is written in labour laws does not always reflect the actual experience of employees. Workers in South Korea log some of the highest hours among advanced economies, putting in about 100 hours more a year than the average American worker, according to 2022 data compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ms Eun Sung, a consultant in her 20s who lives in Seoul, said she often worked six days a week when on a project.

“We consider getting off at 2am or 3am decent,” she said.

She sees friends only once every few months, and her health has been affected by a lack of sleep, she added. While she enjoys consulting, she said she would consider moving to a country where she could have a better work-life balance.

Some companies have ways to get employees to put in longer hours, according to FKTU policy unit head Ryu Jae-kang. They may pay fixed salaries that already incorporate overtime hours, and not all hours for all types of work may be tracked.

The legal reduction of working hours over the years has been a sign of South Korea’s development and a shift among people to focus more on their personal lives, said Yonsei University sociology professor Han Joon.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is considered pro-business, in 2023 proposed raising the cap on the workweek to 69 hours. It faced a backlash from the public and opposition political parties, and he withdrew the plan.

Some are pushing to reduce working hours. A four-day workweek was part of the platforms of some politicians running in the nation’s April parliamentary elections. In June, the government launched a work-life balance committee charged with exploring more flexible working practices.

“Times are changing,” Prof Han said. “Young people don’t want to be slaves to their companies any more.” NYTIMES