Seoul, Mar 4: The average annual working hours for South Koreans fell by nearly 200 hours over the past decade but still remain about 150 hours longer than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), data showed Sunday.According to statistics from the country’s Ministry of Employment and Labour, the average accumulated working hours of a worker at a company with at least one employee came to 156.2 hours per month last year, 2.5 hours shorter than in 2022, Yonhap news agency reported.
The monthly 2023 average translates into a total of 1,874 working hours per year, the first-ever reading in the 1,800-hour range.
With the introduction of the 52-hour weekly work hour system in 2018, South Korea has seen a steady decline in its notoriously long working hours, the report said.