Time Slaves

 

The OECD announced on November 2 that paid workers, self-employed persons and part-time workers in Korea worked for an average of 2,124 hours per person last year, second only to those in Mexico by a margin of 104 hours among the 34 OECD member countries. The OECD average was 1,770 hours.

Korea had been on top of the list until 2007 but Mexico took the place of it in the following year. Koreans’ working hours had reached 2,512 hours in 2000, dropped to 2,090 in 2011 and has shown little change between 2,100 and 2,200 since the next year.

It was Germany that was at the bottom of the list last year with an average of 1,371 hours. It was followed by the Netherlands (1,425 hours), Norway (1,427), Denmark (1,436) and France (1,473). Japan, the U.S. and Italy were close to the OECD average. Specifically, the number was 1,729 for Japan, 1,789 for the United States, 1,734 for Italy and 1,677 for Britain.

The average of Korea has been on a gradual decrease since 2008. This can be attributed to the factors including an increase in the number of part-time workers.

 

 

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution