Labor ministry seeks wider support for shorter workweeks

The labor ministry said Wednesday it will seek a larger budget for its Work-Life Balance+4.5 Project after 293 companies joined the program by the end of July, exceeding this year's target of 220 companies.

The initiative supports businesses introducing a four-and-a-half-day workweek and other ways to reduce actual working hours. The ministry plans to assess the effects of shorter hours and share the results with companies.

At its eighth meeting, the task force overseeing the working-hours reduction roadmap heard from labor and management representatives about workplace changes. "Shorter working hours can be sustained only when changes to cut unnecessary work, improve processes and raise productivity are pursued together," Bae Gyu-sik, the task force's co-chair, said. Members also discussed sharing effective cases across regions and industries and encouraging employers to view shorter hours as a management strategy rather than a cost.

"Facing recruitment difficulties because commuting from the city was difficult, we introduced a 4.5-day workweek for all employees to attract talented staff, and began eliminating unnecessary work and using AI in each department to reduce operational gaps. As a result, we succeeded in hiring three new employees," Jo Yeong-jik, an EcoWorldFarm team leader, said. The use of AI cut the total actual weekly working hours of the company's 18 office employees to 600 from 648.

Busan Urban Railway Operations Service restructured shifts for cleaning workers, many of them middle-aged or older, after long and night shifts resulted in a higher industrial-accident rate than at peer companies. It cut schedules from six days and 45 hours a week to five days and 40 hours, hired 43 workers and introduced automated cleaning machines. The company said customer-service satisfaction rose 1.77 points from a year earlier and no industrial accidents had occurred since the shift change.

Sincheon Yeonhap Hospital began a voluntary two-hour weekly reduction in August for daytime departments on a rotating basis to minimize gaps in patient care. Its union proposed shorter hours to retain experienced medical staff amid frequent turnover. The hospital first reduced hours for health-screening-center nurses and plans to discuss reductions for emergency-room and ward nurses. IBK Industrial Bank of Korea introduced one-hour early departures on Wednesdays and Fridays through voluntary labor-management talks without government support. Its union said the bank would use the reduced time for job training and prepare new hires to maintain in-person services for financially vulnerable customers.