South Korea's Yoon Suk-yeol backtracks on 69-hour work week plan amid widespread backlash

South Korea's conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol has back-pedalled on his drive to increase weekly working hours after the campaign aimed at tackling the country's dwindling labour force and low birth rates faced widespread backlash from exhausted citizens.

Yoon on Tuesday ordered the labour ministry to redraft a bill to better reflect public opinion, barely a week after it was put up for a 40-day public consultation period before being voted into law.

The bill, if passed, would raise the weekly maximum work hours from the current 52 to 69, nearly twice that of France's 35-hour work week.

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"Review areas that need to be fixed [are] in the details of the bill and in communicating with the public by listening closely to the various opinions of workers, especially the opinions of the 'MZ generation'," Yoon said, using a Korean term for the country's millennials and Generation Z.

Yoon's directive came as his support rate among voters in their 20s fell 5 percentage points to 19 per cent and plunged 10 percentage points to 13 per cent in their 30s following the announcement of the labour bill.

Koreans already have some of the longest working weeks among members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

According to the liberal opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the country's workers put in 1,900 hours per employee annually, 300 more than the OECD average. While they are legally entitled to 15 days of annual leave, they reportedly manage to consume only 10 days.

Some 500 workers reportedly die from overwork every year in South Korea, according to the umbrella Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.

The previous liberal government had in 2018 cut the weekly maximum of 68 hours to 52, which included a standard 40-hour work week and an additional 12 hours of overtime, in order to combat the country's notoriously challenging work culture.

The Yoon administration instead suggested employees should be allowed to work more hours per week in exchange for longer holidays elsewhere in the year.

"We can resolve serious social problems like ageing and low birth rates by allowing women to choose their working hours in a more flexible manner," labour minister Lee Jung-sik said last week.

The bill, however, drew criticism from various sectors including women's groups, which said extending the working hours would send already low fertility rates plunging.

South Korea's total fertility rate hit the world's lowest at 0.78 expected births per woman last year despite the government spending 280 trillion won (US$215 billion) over 16 years to 2021 to prop up the birth rate.

"The 69-hour work week would make ... it impossible for women to retain the already precarious balance between work and home chores," said Lee Jung-ah, head of Gyeonggi Women's Associations United.

IT industries, manufacturers and construction companies, already struggling with staff shortages and meeting project deadlines, have been calling for greater flexibility in working hours.

An IT employee, who declined to be named, told SBS TV he was often deprived of his rest days because of his company's strict working environment and the competitive industry he was in. The employee said he was afraid the proposed scheme would be abused by the management to force staff to work longer hours.

A survey last week showed 75 per cent of respondents believed their companies would not grant long leave in return for more work hours, reflecting a widespread distrust in the new "labour reform" bill.

Social media users also lashed out at the bill.

"Working 69 hours a week and attending to private affairs, leisure activities, dating and marrying, giving birth to two kids and raising them all the while? I'd better commit suicide," a user wrote on Twitter.

"Work 69 hours a week and have sex at leisure to produce kids? ... I am already exhausted," another said in a tweet.

Medical experts also warned that working longer followed by a lengthy holiday would be harmful to health.

"The presupposition that working hard for a few months and taking a long leave would help restore your health is absolutely nonsense", said Dr Ryu Hyun-cheol, chief of the Korea Institute of Labour Safety and Health.

The DPK urged the government to immediately scrap the bill, which it said encouraged "kwarosa" - a Korean term describing death from overwork - and added it would be prepared to vote down the bill.

South Korea's rapid industrialisation has propelled the country to become the world's 10th-largest economy, but its highly competitive society has also resulted in many citizens delaying marriage and having children as they struggle to cope with heavy education costs and skyrocketing property prices.

Recent data from Statistics Korea showed the population is expected to shrink to 38 million in 2070, down from roughly 52 million in 2022. The country is expected to become an ultra-aged society by 2025, where 20 per cent of the population is aged 65 and over.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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