South Korea Cuts Its Work Limit From 68 Hours a Week To 52 (cnn.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: South Korea has lowered its maximum working hours from 68 hours a week to 52 hours. The legislation, which went into effect Sunday, received overwhelming support in the National Assembly in an effort to limit the time employees spend on the job. South Korea has the third highest number of hours worked of 37 countries tracked by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with the average person in South Korea working about 2,024 hours in 2017, or approximately 38.9 hours a week.

Comments

Great idea

[cmdr_klarg]

Now let's do that here in the US. No exceptions. If the job requires more than 50 hours to accomplish then you need more people doing it. If you can't afford to have more people doing the job then you shouldn't be in business.

Re:Great idea

[_Sharp'r_]

It's for "businesses with more than 300 employees, state-run agencies and government offices".

From the same article:

Prior to the new law, South Koreans worked some 300 more hours yearly compared to workers in countries such as the US or Italy, and some 700 more hours yearly to those in countries such as Germany and Norway.

Studies have shown that the country's long working hours do not necessarily result in higher labour productivity. In 2014, South Koreans' labour productivity was US$31.90 per hour, significantly lower than the OECD average, which was US$49.

Of course, then there's the other side of the coin:

Not every South Korean is pleased with the change. A survey by a local employment portal site showed that 55.2 per cent of the 905 South Korean workers who responded saying that they are concerned about having to work overtime anyway after the law revision - meaning more than 12 hours weekly - but won't be eligible to receive overtime pay.

Before the change, South Koreans worked 52 normal hours and 16 hours of overtime, and were entitled to overtime pay for at least 16 hours a week.

"What if you prefer money or work over life?" said a 33-year-old office worker living in Seongnam. "I think those who want to work more and thereby make more money should have the right to do so. What if you can't make your ends meet unless you work overtime? I feel like for some people in this country, this law revision is rather irresponsible."

Re:Great idea

[dgatwood]

Wouldn't work in software since there's such a lack of programmers compared to demand and programming has such a huge communication overhead that it's more efficient to work more hours than add more people.

Actually, all the research I've seen in this area says the opposite — that you can work maybe one 60-hour week before you start to lose productivity, and over the long term, you're no better off working 60 hours than 30 hours. Your productivity actually goes negative at around 45 hours, IIRC, and diminishing returns begin at 25 or 30 hours. I forget the exact numbers, but that's in the right ballpark. So you're almost always better off adding more people than working more hours, unless the need is very short-term.

The only companies that do well by forcing people to work crazy hours are game developers, and that's because they know they can burn out one group of devs and move on to the next set of suckers. For everybody else, it is generally self-defeating.

Re:Great idea

[dgatwood]

The only companies that do well by forcing people to work crazy hours are game developers, and that's because they know they can burn out one group of devs and move on to the next set of suckers. For everybody else, it is generally self-defeating.

Those aren't NEARLY the only companies. Junior invetsment bankers routinely work 90 hour weeks for 2-3 years on end. i understand that it's no better in law, and Doctors have it EVEN WORSE.

My entire reply was in the context of its parent, which was about programming jobs. Junior investment bankers and junior lawyers have entirely different points of diminishing returns, because the type of work is entirely different.

Software engineering is, despite having a technical component, first and foremost a creative job. Creative jobs give you the fewest useful hours per week. You can push paper and look up pertinent case law and do financial analysis and background research on random stocks for a lot more hours than you can usefully write code. Worse, because programming is so creative, you often don't realize how much your quality is suffering when you write crazy amounts of code for long periods of time, which means things start to go wrong, and nobody can explain why, so they decide that it's a crunch, and everybody has to work longer hours. This generally results in a death spiral.

Re:Great idea

[AmiMoJo]

Always seemed kind of insane to me that we want doctors and lawyers to work ridiculous hours in high stress jobs, when the consequences of them making mistakes are relatively severe.

Seems like if you have someone working 60 hours a week that's an indication that you actually need two people.

Re:38.9 hours a week. ? Thats weak

[Anonymous Coward]

I show up for 40 hours a week. They get about 5 hours of work out of me, if they're lucky.

Re:Only 52

[king neckbeard]

A few factors to consider, depend on the exact methodology used.:

1. People not in the workforce, such as children and retirees.
2. Part timers.
3. Vacation time.

Just two weeks vacation turns a 40 hour week into a 38.5 workweek.

vote union we really them now more then even EU

[Joe_Dragon]

vote union we really them now more then even EU worker rights are so good

Re:38.9 hours a week. ? Thats weak

[JustNiz]

yeah. I've seen plenty of companies that expect (i.e. dont even ask) you to work an extra 15 hours/week UNPAID just because they are missing a deadline which they promise is an exceptional situation but is clearly planned in and happens every other week .I mean we hired you because you're a team player right? Also factor in that many US companies start employees on 10 days/year paid leave and then have the balls to even take 2 or 3 of those back for non-voluntary shutdown over Christmas, and I would argue the US has some of the most oppressed salaried employees in the world.