85% of Business Leaders Urge Reform of Korea's 52-Hour Workweek

* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six news items tailored to each reader type.

1. "Performance-Based Pay and Labor Flexibility Needed": 85% Call for Reform of the 52-Hour Workweek

Key summary: In the Seoul Economic Daily survey of 102 business leaders and labor experts, extending the settlement period and easing the requirements of the existing flexible working hours system ranked first as a way to make working hours more flexible, at 29.4%, while only 15.2% said the framework of the 52-hour workweek should be maintained. Asked why the seniority-based pay system acts as an obstacle to the shift into advanced industries, the largest share, 21.2%, pointed to hindering the movement and reassignment of talent in strategic industries, followed by the loss of core personnel (19.6%) and weaker incentives to build expertise (19.3%). To move to job-based pay, the most cited requirement was for employers to set transparent job evaluation standards and expand profit sharing, at 28.0%, followed by government incentives (26.7%) and union acceptance (22.8%). For new employees, the analysis is that with salary negotiation structures shifting from seniority toward job duties and performance, it has become important to manage job expertise and a record of results systematically from the earliest days on the job.

2. Eight in 10 Say "AI Adoption Must Not Be Delayed"; 74% Want Legal Safeguards on Dismissals

Key summary: In the same survey, the largest share, 63.3%, said the pace of AI and automation adoption should be maintained but with minimum post-hoc checks in place, and adding those who said adoption speed should be the top priority (19.4%) brings the share favorable to the AI transition to 82.7%. By contrast, 46.0% said final human review should be mandatory in high-risk personnel decisions such as dismissing workers, and 28.0% called for legislating a right to demand an explanation and procedures to file objections, meaning 74% in total sought separate control mechanisms. A majority, 52.5%, said the cost of retraining for the shift to new technology should be shared among companies, the government and workers. New employees, the report says, need a dual strategy of building skills in roles less likely to be replaced by AI while making active use of retraining support programs.

3. No Overtime Even During "Sprint Time": "We Nearly Lost the Contract Over a Missed Deadline"

Key summary: Company A, an AI webtoon startup, won a 200 million won project equal to 20% of its annual revenue, but was unable to add work hours for three to four weeks just before the deadline because of the 52-hour workweek, and completed the project only after securing a three-week extension from the client. According to the Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning, South Korea had 603,566 researchers in 2023, about one-tenth of China's full-time equivalent R&D workforce of 6.354 million in 2022, and in a survey of some 500 companies, 75.8% said R&D output had declined since the 52-hour workweek took effect. On the ground, there are reports that "shadow work," in which employees carve out personal time to work beyond the 52 hours to meet deadlines, is frequent. For new employees preparing to join technology-intensive startups or R&D roles, the analysis is that they should check the direction of the working-hour flexibility debate and the company's overtime compensation system before joining.

4. "Block Unpaid Overtime and Pair It With Health Safeguards"

Key summary: Experts said greater flexibility in working hours should be designed to raise work intensity and guarantee health rights rather than to allow unlimited long hours. Key safeguards under discussion include a minimum rest period of 11 hours between the end of one shift and the start of the next, a cap set at the overwork-death threshold of an average of 64 hours a week over four weeks, and a concentrated compensation leave system that grants paid leave in proportion to overtime worked during intensive periods. There are also calls to block abuse of the comprehensive wage system and to build a structure that clearly compensates actual extra work with allowances or substitute leave. For new employees, the explanation is that carefully checking the employment contract for whether the comprehensive wage system applies and how overtime is compensated is the first step in protecting their rights.

5. Automatic ETF Purchases in Retirement Accounts Blocked by the 70% Risk-Asset Rule

Key summary: Major brokerages including Mirae Asset Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, Samsung Securities, KB and NH Investment & Securities offer services for accumulating ETF shares in IRP and DC-type retirement pension accounts, but cases of automatic purchases being suspended are mounting because of the 70% limit on risk-asset investment under retirement pension rules. When the limit is exceeded, investors must rebalance their portfolios themselves by raising the share of safe assets, and with expected returns on time deposits at only 3% to 4% a year, there are limits to improving overall returns. Some investors are adding bond-mixed ETFs within the remaining 30% allocation to raise their effective equity exposure to as much as 85%, and financial authorities and the Ministry of Employment and Labor are reviewing whether to ease the limit, though no conclusion has been reached. For new employees starting to pay into retirement pensions, the analysis is that understanding the risk-asset limit and how to rebalance a portfolio in advance is an advantage in managing long-term returns.

6. Estimated Presale Prices in Third-Phase New Towns Jump 20% to 40% at Final Application

Key summary: The final presale price for a 59-square-meter unit in Block A6 of Incheon Gyeyang was 534.9 million won, up 39.8% from the estimated presale price of 382.62 million won at the advance application stage, and increases of 20% to 30% were also confirmed in Namyangju Wangsuk 2 and Goyang Changneung. According to the National Assembly Budget Office, actual presale prices exceeded estimated prices in 30 of the 31 blocks that completed final applications through the end of June last year, or 96.8%, and the increase topped 10% in 19 blocks. In Namyangju Wangsuk 2 Block A3, the final application was pushed back roughly one year and eight months from the originally planned September 2024 to May 2026, part of a repeated pattern in which project delays lead to higher presale prices. For new employees preparing to buy a home, the analysis is that they should not treat estimated presale prices from the advance application stage as fixed figures in their funding plans, and should instead use final presale prices, which reflect higher construction costs, as the practical benchmark.