South Korea to implement 52-hour workweek for businesses with fewer than 30 employees from next year

Starting next year, workers at businesses with fewer than 30 employees in South Korea will no longer be able to work more than 52 hours a week. This is to promote the "52-hour workweek" system, which is designed for businesses with fewer than 30 employees.
This is because the "education period" for the law to be enacted has ended. Until now, the employment authorities had extended the education period by two years in consideration of the labor shortage at small businesses and the economic situation, but this year, the rate of violations of the law is not high, so
With the end of the eight-hour additional work system, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has decided to extend the 52-hour work week limit that was applied to businesses with fewer than 30 employees from January 1, 2018 to January 31, 2019.
The government announced that it would end the enlightenment period for the 8-hour work week system on the 26th. The 8-hour additional work system is a transitional measure to allow small and medium-sized enterprises to adapt to the expanded 52-hour work week system that will be applied in 2023.
During the enlightenment period, the ministry will carry out irregular and regular inspections and will issue suspensions of up to nine months (or 10 months for non-compliant companies) to those found to be in violation of the law.
The results of the labor inspections conducted during the two-year education period showed that the violation rate at the relevant workplaces was not higher than that of the overall workplaces, and that the violations were corrected within an average of four months.
However, in order to minimize the difficulties faced by some workplaces due to the end of the guidance period, the company will temporarily suspend labor inspections and complaint handling until the end of June next year.
The heads of local government offices will be given flexibility to consider the circumstances of companies and provide an additional three months of opportunity to make corrections if necessary.
The ministry plans to provide new symbiosis consulting services and strengthen on-site guidance (consulting) by labor inspectors from each local government agency.
"We plan to communicate with those in the field and seek ways to resolve this issue through social dialogue," he said.