The Democratic Party of Korea and the government held a joint policy meeting on the 4th on mega special zones and agreed to submit a special act supporting the mega project this month and pass it through the National Assembly before year-end. The government's draft of the mega zone act includes a "white-collar exemption" that would remove high-earning professionals and research and development staff from working-hour rules, along with a provision expanding flexible working-hour schemes. Adopting the system would in effect lift the 52-hour workweek cap. The party and the government, however, agreed to pursue the bill after gathering views from labor groups and other stakeholders and reaching a broad social compromise.
Major economies including the United States and Japan already operate systems that set no cap on working hours for R&D personnel and similar staff. South Korea, by contrast, passed a special semiconductor act in January but left out a clause exempting R&D staff from the 52-hour limit. Labor groups have also pushed back strongly against a plan to ease the 52-hour rule only within advanced-industry clusters outside the greater Seoul area. Although the party and the government have now decided to introduce a white-collar exemption and related measures inside mega special zones, there is considerable concern that the plan could collapse during talks with labor. That is because President Lee Jae-myung, whose approval ratings have fallen recently, is accelerating policies tilted toward labor groups, a core base of his support.
While Korean chipmakers remain hobbled by outdated rules, China is closing in at a fearsome pace. According to one market research firm on the 3rd, China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) held a 10% share of the global DRAM market in the third quarter, its highest ever. The Ministry of Employment and Labor has also left open the possibility of union strikes even when the new semiconductor cluster in the Honam region makes staff redeployment unavoidable. On this course, it is hard to rule out that Korean companies will fall behind in the global race to hold a decisive lead in semiconductors.
President Lee said last month of the Honam semiconductor cluster that he hoped it would be "carried out quickly, at a pace no less than that of Kumamoto in Japan," calling for "not just a speed campaign but a blitz." Launching a mega project blitz without labor flexibility is like putting up a roof with no pillars. Even if the semiconductor cluster is completed, can R&D — the foundation of advanced technology — function properly with the 52-hour shackle still in place? Easing working-hour rules is urgent for national competitiveness as well. The government and the National Assembly should introduce the exception to the 52-hour rule in mega special zones without delay and expand it in stages, without limiting it to particular industries or regions.
