Push for More Flexible Working Hours
The Presidential Transition Committee included inclusive wage-related regulations in its tasks for more flexible working hours. An inclusive wage can be defined as a monthly wage including predetermined overtime, night and holiday pay. In signing a labor contract, a person and an employer can opt to adopt it for calculation convenience if the extra work is anticipated.
The regulations make up a part of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s campaign pledges related to the labor sector, which are to make working hours more flexible, while maintaining 52-hour workweek, based on an employer-employee agreement and in view of different job characteristics.
The promise has been welcomed by, for example, startups and those whose peak and off seasons are clearly distinguished. On the other hand, many workers are opposed to it, saying that more flexible working hours will lead to more unwanted and unpaid work with workers subordinate in most employer-employee relations.
According to a 2020 survey of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, inclusive wages were in effect at 749 out of 2,522 companies. “Inclusive wage calculation blurs the distinction between statutory and extra working hours and a higher level of flexibility without proper regulations will lead to a rapid increase in unpaid extra work,” one of the objectors said.
In fact, the current Moon Jae-in administration has failed to regulate the inclusive wage system after its promise in 2017 that it would reduce the average annual working hours to 1,800 or so by this year. Likewise, the new government’s promise for more flexible working hours is unlikely to be kept in the near future as the party of the president-elect is not the majority party.