[Insight & Opinion] Is This the Time to Debate Working Hours?

Many Jobs Are Difficult to Regulate by Working Hours
Regulatory Innovation Needed to Match the Global Environment
Enhancing National Competitiveness Through Flexible Approaches

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, recently said, "When high-income experts in specific industrial R&D fields agree, why can't exceptions be made to allow concentrated work?" but then retracted his statement, sparking debate. He seemed to accept exceptions to the 52-hour workweek within total working hours. The problem was that the 52-hour workweek was unilaterally and uniformly imposed by the state from the start. This has disrupted the economic activities of ordinary citizens.

Although South Korea has the longest working hours in the world and made a decision to reduce hours to protect workers' lives, simply reducing hours was not enough. First, hourly labor productivity was low, so workers had no choice but to work longer hours. Moreover, there was a prevalent culture of unnecessarily extending working hours rather than working intensively during work time. Also, wage systems such as overtime pay contributed to this.

In any case, the implementation of the 52-hour workweek has brought various changes to our society. Linked with minimum wage increases, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners are struggling with rising labor costs and workforce supply. As a result, various automation and digitalization, including robots, are rapidly progressing. Also, workers who want to work but cannot do overtime are pushed into second or third jobs such as delivery and substitute driving for additional income. The business community continues to request differential application by job type, but this has not been accepted.

There are so many diverse and complex jobs in the world that trying to regulate them uniformly is absurd. The demands of labor organizations assume cases where working hours can be easily set in traditional factories or offices, but even so, blocking workers from earning more money through additional work while they are young and economically improving themselves is taking away their right to work.

For jobs like external sales, which are not sales positions but require working anytime to meet targets, working hours cannot be specified. Courts also recognize accidents during activities such as company dinners or golf for sales as industrial accidents occurring during work. As discussed in the Semiconductor Special Act, research workers cannot have their research defined by time. The nature of competitive research results requires sitting in the lab day and night, so demanding work only during fixed hours is nonsensical. Would it be acceptable to tell scholars writing papers to research only 52 hours a week?

Creative and artistic fields such as film, music, performance, web, and design also cannot be defined by time. Even sitting all day may not yield good results, and sometimes results can be achieved in a short time. There are also jobs like trading that require not only actual trading hours but also extensive prior research time. It is difficult to distinguish what counts as work in labor terms.

In a capitalist society, it is absurd for the state to uniformly set working hours. Depending on the nature of the work, labor and management should autonomously decide through rules of engagement linked to the wage system. The state should intervene only in cases of illegal labor where workers are unreasonably deprived of rights, discriminated against, or coerced. We must remember that labor is also a market.

In the global environment, all jobs performed worldwide are classified and described in detail, and prices for these jobs are surveyed by market (region, country). Ultimately, it is agreed upon by labor and management through choice. To become a competitive country, the labor sector must innovate to fit the global environment. The starting point is to approach work more flexibly.

Kim Hong-jin, CEO of Work Innovation Lab