Gyeonggi-do, Childcare Workers for Under 10s... '4 Days a Week, 6 Hours, 1 Day Remote Work' Schedule

Gyeonggi Provincial Government

Gyeonggi Province will officially implement the ‘4·6·1 Childcare Support Work System’ for provincial government employees starting from the 27th of this month to overcome low birth rates.

The ‘4·6·1’ refers to working 4 days a week, 6 hours a day, and 1 day working from home. Gyeonggi Province introduced this system to create a work environment that supports childcare, allowing parents to directly care for their children.

Earlier in April, Gyeonggi Province held the 8th Population Talk Talk Committee meeting and announced plans to promote the ‘Love I’ project, a population and low birth rate policy that residents can feel.

This work system targets employees who are pregnant or caring for children aged 0 to 10. Pregnant employees are required to use 2 hours of maternity protection time per day, working 6 hours a day for 4 days a week and working from home 1 day a week. Employees with children aged 0 to 5 can use 2 hours of childcare time at least twice a week, working 6 hours a day, and can work from home 1 day a week. Under the current system, public officials with children under 5 years old can use 2 hours of childcare time per day for 24 months.

Additionally, employees caring for children aged 6 to 10, corresponding to grades 1 to 4 in elementary school, will be allowed to work from home once a week.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to revise work regulations this year to allow childcare time for children aged 6 to 8, and Gyeonggi Province will expand this to age 10 through amendments to the work ordinance, creating conditions for reduced working hours of 2 hours per day at least twice a week.

Gyeonggi Province will also actively gather feedback from field employees and prepare a phased implementation plan to promote and stabilize the ‘4·6·1 Childcare Support Work System.’

The province will operate a pilot period until July, encourage system expansion from August to the end of the year, and fully implement the system starting next year.

During the pilot and expansion phases, senior officials at the team leader level and above will encourage pregnant employees to use flexible and remote work, and childcare support incentives will be given to those acting as work substitutes.

Furthermore, departments with excellent childcare support implementation rates will receive additional points in department head performance evaluations, and from next year, mandatory system compliance will be fully enforced, including submission of reasons for non-compliance with the childcare support work system.