Nat'l Assembly committee passes bill on reducing S. Korea's working hours

Five years after the National Assembly begun discussions on the matter,... a parliamentary committee has finally passed a bill on reducing South Korea's working hours, with hopes to improve the nation's working environment.Kim Mok-yeon has the details. A parliament committee on Tuesday passed a bill to shorten working hours in South Korea.The National Assembly's Environment and Labor Committee endorsed the bill, which calls for reducing the country's maximum statutory working hours to 52 hours a week from the current 68. Under the current law, the maximum working hours in Korea were 68 hours per week, as the law excluded Saturdays and Sundays as part of the 40 hour 'working days', making it possible to work an additional 16 hours during the weekend on top of any extended working hours.The revised working hours will now include the weekends in the weekly 40 hour working day period, reducing the maximum hours to 52. The cut in working hours comes as part of President Moon Jae-in's key election pledge to enhance workers' quality of life and help create more jobs. The bill will now be passed to the judiciary committee for deliberation, and if passed will be put for a vote at the National Assembly's plenary session, possibly as early as Wednesday. However, there have been continued objections from many industries amid worries that the revision could harm productivity.To minimize the impact, the committee says the new law will be enforced gradually over the next 3 years. It will be applied to firms with 300 workers or more from this July, while firms with 50 to 299 workers will adapt to the system in 2020, and those with five to 49 workers will follow it from 2021.Kim Mok-yeon, Arirang News.