[Courtesy of the Presidential Security Service]
SEOUL -- Coming back from a week-long rest forced by overwork, South Korean President Moon Jae-in defended his initiative to introduce a shortened work week as an important step to improve the quality of life and labor productivity together.
At a meeting of top aides Monday, Moon expressed sorry for taking a rest last week due to flu and fatigue stemming from his hectic schedule, saying South Korea should shed its image of an overworked society.
"It will provide an important opportunity to get out of the overworked society," he said, referring to a new law on shorter working hours that took effect this week.
South Korea has been known as one of Asia’s most overworked country. In attempts to improve living standards, create more jobs and boost productivity, Moon has cut the maximum weekly work hours from 68 to to 52. However, the government agreed to introduce a six-month grace period for the implementation of shorter working hours because of concerns about a slow economic recovery.
"Shortened work hours lead to improved labor productivity," Moon said. "What is more important is fundamental measures to guarantee the life of people and the safety of workers by reducing death and industrial accidents from overwork dramatically and preventing drowsy driving."
Initially, many workers expressed unhappiness about lower wages to be caused by reduced working hours while companies argued they are not fully prepared for the new system. A report by the Korea Economic Research Institute estimated that firms will need to hire an additional 266,600 staff to cope with the reduced work week.
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon has called for a flexible approach to cushion the impact of the new law which targets companies with 300 or more employees.
Moon has taken a series of pro-union steps, raising the ceiling of minimum wages. The minimum wage was raised by 16.4 percent to 7,530 won ($6.69) per hour, but it backfired because small firms sacked many part-time workers to reduce costs.
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