Koreans work less

South Koreans are turning their backs on a workaholic culture once seen as indispensable but increasingly viewed as unhealthy, unproductive and inefficient. Long working hours have long been a feature of the Korea Inc. that transformed a war-ravaged nation into Asia's fourth-biggest economy in a matter of decades. Rapid development has brought new values and new priorities, with employees demanding a better work-life balance than the previous generations who were told their patriotic duty lay in pulling the country out of poverty. The impact of long-working hours on family life has been partly blamed for a sliding birthrate that has made South Korea one of the world's most rapidly aging societies.

 In 2011, an average South Korean worker put in 44.6 hours a week, the second highest after Turkey among members of the 34-nation Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But the exhausted workers ranked only 28th in terms of productivity. A report last year by consulting firm Towers Watson showed that only 17 percent of South Korean workers were "highly engaged" in their work, far lower than the average of 35 percent among the 28 advanced nations surveyed.

 During last year's presidential election, all the main candidates vowed to cut overtime and improve people's quality of life. The winner, Park Geun-Hye, promised to bring working hours down to the OECD average by 2020.

Even the giant family-run conglomerates, or "chaebols", that dominate the national economy have started to make concessions -- albeit slowly. The South's top automaker Hyundai Motor agreed to cut working hours for some 30,000 plant workers and to dump its decades-long graveyard shift, 10 years after negotiations started with the labour union. And 35 banks and other financial firms -- with a combined workforce of more than 100,000 -- recently agreed with the industry's umbrella union to embrace the "PC off" rule by the end of 2013. The state-run Industrial Bank of Korea,  the fourth largest bank by assets, in 2009 adopted the unprecedented policy of shutting down all office computers at 7:00 pm to ensure people went home.

"Some say fewer work hours means less profits, but I don't believe that is the case anymore," said Sung Nak-Jo, spokesman for the Korean Financial Industry Union. "We used to be working long hours in a constantly exhausted and unfocused state... Now is the time to do something to achieve more sustainable, effective and humane growth," he told AFP.