The Freedom to Work Taken by the 52-Hour Workweek Limit

As the scope of the 52-hour workweek has been expanded to include small and medium-sized enterprises, confusion has spread among workers and business managers alike. Accepting the demands of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the government imposed by law a regulation that forcibly reduces working hours, claiming it would provide office workers with “a life with evenings.” But what happened in reality was different. Some people lost their jobs, while others saw their incomes fall and ended up taking on second jobs in the evening.

What matters to workers is not only the working environment. How much they earn while working is also important. As working hours have been reduced under the 52-hour workweek, a considerable number of workers have seen their monthly pay fall by as much as 300,000 to 400,000 won. There has also been a pattern of employees, whose spending levels had already been fixed, leaving for jobs with even slightly higher pay. Although the government is making a show of offering subsidies, this serves only as a means of evading responsibility for policy failure.

Large corporations have implemented the 52-hour workweek system over the past two years. The result has been serious side effects that have made both labor and business management more rigid. Due to inflexible regulations, the way people work has been distorted, and it has become difficult to achieve proper management performance. The damage has ultimately led to reduced worker income and higher business costs. As production problems emerged, companies eventually began using fewer workers and introducing mechanized equipment. In the end, the door to employment has grown ever narrower for young people seeking new jobs.

These problems are already serious even at large workplaces with 50 or more employees, yet the 52-hour workweek has now been extended to workplaces with fewer than 50 employees. Its negative effects are bound to be far greater. As workers at small and medium-sized enterprises face restrictions on how long they can work, they are being forced to endure lower incomes.

To maintain the same level of production as before, small and medium-sized enterprises have had to hire additional workers. But not only is it difficult to find extra workers in the first place, it is even harder to bear the additional labor costs that come with hiring them. Small and medium-sized enterprises that cannot afford those costs are now facing threats to their survival.

In the United States, there is no cap on overtime work. In most cases, workplace autonomy has been achieved through collective bargaining agreements. Overtime hours, through which workers can work more and earn more, are compensated with premium pay. Because the freedom to work is allowed, it has become possible to increase productivity and protect jobs. In other words, allowing workers the freedom to work has had the effect of raising their incomes.

For the economy to function normally, the freedom to work must not be blocked. The 52-hour workweek obstructs the freedom to work, increases economic rigidity, and reduces workers’ incomes. Regulations that suppress working hours do nothing but create the harmful effect of constraining business management. The government must guarantee the freedom to work so that anyone who wants to work more can do so.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 주 52시간제에 빼앗긴 일할 자유

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2021-07-14

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=24045