Korean Employees Work Less, Get Paid More This Year

As a growing number of businesses are introducing the fie-day workweek this year, Korean employees` working hours have dropped to some extent.

According to the Ministry of Labor (MOL) Sunday, the average number of working hours at businesses with more than five employees was 45.5 hours a week from 45.8 hours from a year earlier.

Regular weekly working hours dropped from 41.7 to 41.2, while overtime fell from 4.1 to 4.0.

Nonetheless, average monthly wages increased 11.2 percent to 2.03 million won this year from 1.83 million won in May last year.

By size of businesses, companies with more than 500 employees raise their monthly salaries by 17.7 percent whereas firms with 5-9 and 10-19 workers increased their monthly wages by 5.1 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.

Kyung-Joon Chung news91@donga.com