According to a survey by Swiss bank UBS, Seoulites work… a lot:
Employees in Asian and Middle Eastern cities are spending much longer at work, averaging 2,119 and 2,063 hours per year respectively. The treadmill is at its most demanding in Cairo, where the average employee clocks up 2,373 hours per year, followed by Seoul with 2,312 hours.
In contrast, French workers are at their jobs for much shorter times. Staff in Lyon and Paris put in, respectively, 1,582 and 1,594 hours per year.
Of course, if you live in Korea, this comes as no surprise.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Spending time at the office != working…
And now we start again that discussion about “working” vs. “staying at the work place”…
Afternoon naps and snack parties count as working right?
Of the forbes 100 most powerful women, one Korean makes the list Hyun Jeong eun at #79.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/20.....ank_4.html
Notably few Asian women make the list. (then Americans make up the lions share).
Very questionable list anyway.
Do these Korean numbers include English teachers?? If so, that must drop off the averages…
Although this is not addressed in the article, I would have to believe that the US would be placed toward the very top of the list in terms of hours worked by employees. In addition to the extra hours career workers spend at their jobs, many other underemployed workers work at a second and even third job.
Sure enough, I was right again. Bottom line: nobody in the industrialized world puts in more productive work hours than Americans.
An ILO (International Labor Organization) study in 1999 found that US workers worked the longest hours of all industrialized countries with Japan coming in second. And it is well established that Americans are the most productive work force.
Some references:
http://www.washingtontimes.com.....rk-harder/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W....._and_Japan
The wikipedia figures appear to be outdated as the article indicates that “South Korea was the only country in the OECD that worked Saturdays,” which, as we know, is no longer the case.
The article also notes that the US labor force “is today worked to more extreme lengths than any earlier period in United State history.” It states::
The article does not delve into the fact that more Americans are working second jobs than any time in history.
Mizar5,
Great job dispelling some of the misinformation out there. This misinformation has been propounded by both the elite American overclass aiming to deceive people into thinking that things haven’t economically deteriorated as much as they have, and by people seeking to paint Americans as lazy.
I don’t know where to begin…to dovetail into a discussion of actual productivity, or to give anectotes of Korean co-workers staying at work late just to be seen, all the while surfing the Internet?
Yeah, let’s go with the anecdote. I was once told by a kyopo attorney in Seoul that if I needed to leave the office before 10 pm, to leave the computer and lights on and place a half-filled cup of coffee on my desk so that it would look like I had just stepped out for a minute.
The fact that this guy was a Korean version of George Costanza made the advice all the more precious!
DLB
@mka
Who are these classy elites you speak of? Are you in the States or Korea? Nearly everyone here looks at unemployment at 10% and also mentions “under”employment, like people with engineering degrees mowing lawns or former execs working as janitors.
If they had a survey of the most inefficient workplaces, then Korea will for sure top the list.
Of course it won’t be something that the Korean news outlets will be bragging about.
DLBarch.. I used to do something very similar. When I had to bill crazy hours at my old job, I used to hang my suit jacket on my chair and leave half eaten food out. Of course, if I ditched early, I had to come in earlier than usual the next day to get rid of the evidence as well.
which, as we know, is no longer the case.
who is “we”, they also have rules about going through red lights…
The 6 day 44 hour week is still in place for smaller companies, and I beleive no regulation for self employed of which there are a pretty high proportion in korea. The 5 day 40 hour week applies to companies with more than 50 staff, but allows overtime. The 5 day system allows for 15 days annual leave (6 day system is/was 10 days plus 1 day monthly leave). So given say 48 weeks 2300 hours is only 48hours a week.
In all in terms of “face” time I would say the figures are an underestimate, with companies deliberately unreporting, since accurate reporting would show they are in breach of labour laws.
BTW Many koreans I’ve met work more than one job also.
Do these Korean numbers include English teachers?? If so, that must drop off the averages…
Well…I don’t know what you mean…by that…maybe…you should have spent…more time…with your English teacher…learning what punctuation…means…instead of…all that time you spent…smoking, spitting and drinking instant coffee in a… pink tie…I mean working…
You must log in to post a comment.