14 ms·

South Korea has limited a working week to 52 hours, in order to stop overwork

253 points by dsr12 8y ago

sandworm101 8y ago
Unless they have also come up with a solid definition of "work", this will be meaningless. Does it include work done from home? Work done on your own time? Will it allow us to turn off the cellphone all weekend? I say this as a government worker spending his Saturday night doing an online course I need to complete before a training day on Tuesday. I'm on salary and so do not get overtime. But to compete I have to pull the rabbit from the hat and somehow get everything done. That means doing work-related tasks in my own time. (This is a busy month. Things will get easier later in the year and everyone knows it. Nobody is complaining.)
- readhn 8y ago
  Many just starting out in the finance industry are pulling 80-100 hour weeks with no overtime. If you calculate per hour wages - a waitress gets paid more. BoA intern collapsed and died at work from over working not too long ago. Life goes on.
  - overeater 8y ago
    Many waitresses and bartenders especially at high end places get paid more than almost any other profession, so it's an unfair comparison. My friends who have these jobs pull $200-400 a night in tips, so probably equivalent to $600/night if we include their hourly salary and that they don't pay taxes on it.
    - petre 8y ago
      Why would one pay taxes on tips? A tip is a gift to the person getting the tip, not to the government. If tips were taxed I would certainly not tip.
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        It is legally required to pay taxes on tips in the US, whether cash or non-cash.
        paulie_a 8y ago
        I might be legally required, but it really doesn't happen.
        petre 8y ago
        From what I understand, if you're a waiter in the US you have a flat rate tax plan regardless of the amount of tips you receive. Otherwise how is the tip registered for taxing purposes? You just declare the tip amount as tax and the IRS takes your word for it?
- readhn 8y ago
  Goldman Sachs limits intern day to 17 hours haha https://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/goldman_sachs_reduces_intern_day_to_17_hours_after_death_of_bank_of_america_corp_intern/ https://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/goldman_sachs_reduces_inter...
- hocuspocus 8y ago
  Having worked 5 years in Korea I'd say the worst offenders don't let people work from home anyway. The main issue is that there's typically already a maximum overtime per week you can clock in. But this doesn't stop anyone to work beyond the limit and not claim those hours. Edit: HN is funny sometimes, I'm downvoted for stating simple facts. At least you could elaborate on how I somehow offended you.
  - OSButler 8y ago
    Not to mention company outings/excursions during the weekends and additional courses/education after work. Japan is usually coming up when talking about crazy work hours, but South Korea appeared to be just as bad, so I'm curious how such regulation would actually apply if all those extra hours are not being counted to your actual work hours.
- phkahler 8y ago
  >> Does it include work done from home? Work done on your own time? Will it allow us to turn off the cellphone all weekend? It certainly should. I have a policy of not working from home except under rare circumstances. Not do I work on my own time. I don't carry a company cell phone or check email when I'm not there. I never set up the VPN to enable this kind of abuse either. Set some boundaries, it's good for you and contrary to what most people think you will probably be respected for it.
  - maccard 8y ago
    I have work email on a pull system at home, and do have VPN access set up. Knowing that I can be contacted if my company desires it means that in return they are flexible with me. It's a two way street.
- DSMan195276 8y ago
  I would presume this is mostly limited to hourly work. It's not like this could ever be enforced for salaried workers because, as you pointed out, you usually don't get overtime and your hours are likely not even logged anyway. When talking about hourly work, the distinction is pretty clear as your hours are already getting logged. Legally, you are required to be paid for any work you do, including "work done on your own time". (Of course, that's largely true for the US. That may be less true in South Korea I suppose. And of course, they can get mad at you for working extra hours, but they still have to pay you for it).
  - gsnedders 8y ago
    Note this varies a lot around the world. In plenty of places salaried workers working beyond their normal working hours are entitled to compensation for overtime (and are still subject to maximum working hours restrictions, minimum rest periods, etc.)
    - walshemj 8y ago
      Technically salaried roles manage their own work ie work late one week next week take Friday afternoon off to play golf which one team leader I know did at BT in the uk (played of a 6 as well)
      - gsnedders 8y ago
        Time off in lieu, like that, is one way of compensating overtime.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  I'm not super familiar with Korean culture, but often it's similar to Japanese culture. In Japan government pronouncements are either almost completely followed by people (spirit as well as letter of the law) or completely ignored by people. It's a consensus mentality and if the consensus is formed, then the social pressure to follow along is huge. In Japan, we've been getting more and more public holidays because people actually take them off (as opposed to their vacation time). We're up to 17 days now. In addition, a few years ago the government insisted that every government worker take 5 days off around Obon (Buddhist holiday usually in August). When I was working at the school, it was taken seriously and people were shipped off even if they wanted to work. Other things just don't get the consensus. For example, after a fairly recent overwork death, they instituted the idea that every second Friday should end at 3:00 pm. I think that was completely ignored. As far as effective measure like this, it's not so much crafting a law that describes what should happen, it's more about throwing spaghetti against the wall until it sticks. In other areas, I was around when sexual harassment was an unfortunate, but mostly accepted thing in business. Then one day the government said, "Don't do that" and it just changed over night. It's not like the government had been doing nothing before that, or that the introduced laws were particularly good -- it's just that for whatever reason the society was ready to accept it at that time. In the context of that kind of culture, I applaud the Korean government's actions. It may or may not have the desired effect today, but if they keep at it, it will probably just improve overnight. Also, the fact that this hits the news is good for other similar cultures like Japan. They see it and the people think, "Maybe we're backwards for following this old way of working". When enough people do that, then it just changes. Very, very, very different than the west.
fourthark 8y ago
> Being forced to soften the rollout of the policy indicates how much the plan was driven by the government, rather than workers themselves that rely on overtime to earn enough money. That changes the story, doesn't it? With so many of us ineligible for overtime in the US, being "management", we may wonder why anyone would work quite that much.
- njarboe 8y ago
  It seems that in the US that having to pay more for overtime is hurting people more than it helps them at this point. Especially people on the lower end of the wage scale. If you want/need to work more then usually you have too have two jobs with all the extra commuting and scheduling. It would be better if people could work 60hr for one employer instead of two.
  - tbihl 8y ago
    That was certainly my experience. I used to ask if I could just report only 2/3rds of my overtime hours to get the same effective rate. Of course, I had no awareness of the software that would be flagging the 'ineffective manager' if I showed up as getting paid the higher rate, regardless of reality.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    Shouldnt we be focusing on the fact that people need to work 60 hours rather than accomidating the system that enables it.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > Shouldnt we be focusing on the fact that people need to work 60 hours rather than accomidating the system that enables it. "Need" is relative. Programmers don't "need" to work 80 hour weeks, but if it's the difference between getting paid $80,000 and $160,000, some people will choose the longer hours, and there isn't inherently anything wrong with that. So why is it wrong when someone whose base salary is $25,000 makes the same choice?
jadedhacker 8y ago
Hopefully a tighter labor market will result in higher wages for workers, reducing the necessity of overtime. There's some evidence that in the united states that employers are so powerful that even the tightest labor market in years isn't increasing wages. EDIT: However, can you imagine such reforms being implemented here? This is the power of a leftist coalition capturing the state. As mild a reform as this is, it stretches the imagination for what is possible here.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- walshemj 8y ago
  Hasn't made a huge difference in the EU though in non unionised companies - but I think anything would be an improvement. A minimum statutory leave policy would make more of a difference say 4 weeks minimum.
- brightball 8y ago
  Part of that is artificial price controls due to insurance. In markets controlled by insurance payouts, higher demand doesn’t allow the business to increase the price service.
- dev_dull 8y ago
  What evidence do you have that it's employers who are powerful holding down wages? Being a small business owner in America sucks. You can barely afford to employ anybody.
  - yulaow 8y ago
    Honestly, that's what says any employer in any part of the world. I am currently in a SW-EU state and I hear the same exact words every day, and here the work market is far more heavy regulated and taxed.
    - hnisgroupthink 8y ago
      Because there are always businesses on the teetering edge of solvency, higher taxes just destroys them like a high tide of the ocean.
trynumber9 8y ago
[deleted]
- konschubert 8y ago
  Solution: work 50 hours one week and 45 hours the next.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- walshemj 8y ago
  In the UK its the average hours worked over a 17 week period must not exceed 48 hours - I suspect this is how it will end up working. Of course what the article doesn't touch on is are there any "Spanish" practices around over time that happen in Korea eg deliberately going slow and holding back work to get more paid over time - or similar tactics that usually where solved by an under the counter brown envelope.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- serpix 8y ago
  those hours are insanity. Your life is worth more than this.
  - calabin 8y ago
    they're really not insane, especially if you're enjoying what you're doing and being compensated for it.
    - walshemj 8y ago
      Not really many studies have shown that after 35 / 40 hours of work in a week has negative effects. maybe like Japan Korea has a presentism problem ie people stretch out work or bike shed to look good. Anyone who has pulled an all nighter knows that after about 36 hours awake you start to see things and can make serious mistakes.
miguelrochefort 8y ago
This is ridiculous. It all depends on the person and the job. Some people can work a lot more than others. Likewise, some jobs are less demanding than others. This is just as bad as minimum wage laws. How do these people come up with such absurd laws?
- sb8244 8y ago
  Are you familiar with the working culture in Korea? I only spent a few months there but it became clear from what I heard from professionals and students that 60+ hour work week is the average. Sure some jobs may be more than that in a healthy market, but it didn't seem like it was healthy.
  - miguelrochefort 8y ago
    I don't deny that there's a problem. I argue that the proposed solution is short-sighted and inadequate. What are the incentives for companies to decrease work hours?What are the incentives for people to work less? What should people do with their time that's more beneficial than working? What compromises will these people have to make now that they're earning less (assuming their overtime was paid)? How will the productivity of Korean companies be affected by this 25-40% drop in employee work time? Hopefully companies will realize that increased work hours have diminishing returns and/or invest in automation to cope with the lack of resources. Hopefully the government doesn't then introduce even sillier laws (such as taxing automation).
    - sb8244 8y ago
      The issue is largely cultural from my understanding. There is a "seniors in charge" mentality in Korea that causes workers to get in before their boss and leave after. This artificially increases the work day while probably not increasing productivity that much. I'm certainly not close to an expert in it, and I don't want to pretend to be, but I don't think the government can do much to solve the problem other than put caps in when it is as bad as it is. It's a deeply rooted cultural issue that I hope this will be a reason to stop.
zebraflask 8y ago
These are the same people who overpay for BTC and, if I remember an HN article from a little while ago, have "death ceremonies" where their employees are made to imagine their own deaths to prove loyalty to the company. Make of that what you will.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
torpfactory 8y ago
The amount of work we do is such a complicated issue. Here are a few primer questions to get you started: How do we quantify amount worked on the continuum of knowledge workers vs. physical laborers? How much are working hours determined by personal preferences and desires (getting promoted, actually enjoy job, etc) vs. demands imposed by management/project requirements? How much of time worked depends on the culture (of a company, of an industry, of a country)? How to quantify work "in the office" vs. at home "answering a few emails? Some people like being really flexible. I personally prefer very binary working/not working lifestyle. How much should we work throughout our careers (I prefer the idea that we can "turn down the volume" on work during child rearing years, but this is in direct opposition to typical career advancement timelines)? Is there any reasonable definition of a "full work week"? What is it (40 hours?) Should we have a minimum wage at all? Does a minimum wage increase productivity by artificially making labor more expensive?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- halflings 8y ago
  "Should we have a minimum wage at all? Does a minimum wage increase productivity by artificially making labor more expensive?" The goal of minimum wage is not to increase productivity, but provide a "safety net" for people at the bottom of the pyramid salary-wise. Public education and healthcare also artificially reduce the price of these services, but the goal again is to provide a safety net to all those that otherwise would not be able to afford them.
  - hdiujjf 8y ago
    Minimum wage ensures the most marginal at risk employee becomes unemployed. Economic illiterarcy on full display.
    - jfoutz 8y ago
      > Economic illiterarcy on full display What’s your plan to fix that? The school of hard knocks? Public education? I mean, as long as it exists, people are going to be exploited. Specifically not paid fair market value.
benatkin 8y ago
What if John McCarthy or Richard Feynman had been limited to 52 hours a week? Or more recently, pg or sama? Or less recently, Albert Einstein or Alan Turing? Edit: I posted it without reading the article, but it's worse than expected. Execs can go to prison. Edit 2: Having a working hour limit applied across the board could result in knowledge workers having to track their time, which works great for some but not for others.
- Teeer 8y ago
  Because we shouldn't sacrifice millions of people's free time just so we can have a couple geniuses do lots of work?
- throwaway080383 8y ago
  Academics and entrepreneurs don't get paid by the hour.
  - benatkin 8y ago
    Not all countries have certain types of salaried employees exempt from overtime and overtime pay. South Korea doesn't appear to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_hours_in_South_Korea#Different_working_hours_in_terms_of_jobs_and_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_hours_in_South_Korea#D...
    - throwaway080383 8y ago
      That's fine, but then "hours worked" at best measures how much time was physically spent "at work", and will be entirely disconnected from how much time guys like McCarthy, Turing, Einstein, and Feynman thought about their research. They weren't doing it for the overtime pay.
      - benatkin 8y ago
        I picture a lot of them living at their office, like Richard Stallman was in the Free as in Freedom [1]. If their managers had to worry about going to prison, they'd probably be prohibited from working at their offices. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_as_in_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_as_in_Freedom
fareesh 8y ago
How does this work exactly? If you are an employee and your boss calls you and asks you to work the 53rd hour, what do you do?
- tbihl 8y ago
  Grumble about illegal work practices on the subway ride to work, one would assume.
- pboutros 8y ago
  Your response is presumably somewhere between: (1) what you'd do if your boss asked you to murder someone (2) what you'd do if your boss asked you to make them a coffee. (In all seriousness, you probably just go to their labor board website and fill out a form or something.)
  - fareesh 8y ago
    I guess my point was that it's complicated from a relationship point of view. Let's say I've worked 3 years at a particular job. This law goes into effect. The following week my boss asks me to do 53 hours of work. What do I do now? I don't want to do the 53rd hour. Do I say no to the boss? Sure maybe he can't legally do anything punitive, but that doesn't mean he won't. What happens to my relationships at work? What happens when my peers decide to do the 53rd hour of work and so they are seen as more valuable to the company? Do management folks start seeing me as less of a team player? What if I go to the labor board? Now the company is chastized for asking me to work beyond 53 hours. What does that do for my relationships at work? My reviews? Promotion prospects? Let's say I move to another job. Word gets around that I'm a litigious sort of guy who goes to the labour board when I'm asked to work more than 52 hours. Does this law protect me in a practical way? Is enforcing this law possible in a practical way, which does not cause other problems for the employee?
    - jackvalentine 8y ago
      Changing cultures requires courage - if you can’t be the one putting themselves on the line then the least you can do is not be the one oppressing them for doing so.
scotchio 8y ago
I was just having a dumb convo with a friend about how JUST a simple 3-day weekend can make you way more productive for like the next 2 weeks. Refreshed, on top of personal life stuff, and ready to go. Why do we work 5 on, 2 off? How did that naturally become the standard. I'd argue that if our economy did a rolling 5 on, 3 off for everyone the whole output would net MORE productivity overall
- erkaes 8y ago
  I think this might work for cognitive-based works like programming but not for muscle-based works like doing constructions.
  - scotchio 8y ago
    Yep, true
- freedomben 8y ago
  Totally agree. I worked at a company that gave us the option of working 4/10s (Mon-Thurs, 10 hour shifts) or what we called a 9/80 where you would Mon-Fri the first week, but only Mon-Thurs the second week (9 hour shifts). The 9/80 was the most productive schedule ever. Having a 3 day weekend every other weekend helped me recharge and really improved my work:life balance.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  >How did that naturally become the standard. It didn’t. People fought and died for this and many other protections, engaged in massive disruptions of their workplaces and society at large. If history and the developing world are at all examples, businesses would rather work people to death and use every form of coercion possible to drive down the price of labor. The degree to which we forget that this and are unwilling to do the same is the degree to which these rights will be eroded.
  - freddie_mercury 8y ago
    To add to that...in the country I live in (a developing country in Asia), 5-2 is NOT the standard. If you work for a western company or have a skilled white collar type job you work either 5-2 or 5½-1½. That is, you work a half day every Saturday. It is so common that every commercial lease I've seen covers it. e.g. "we provide air conditioning from 8am-6pm Monday to Friday and 8am-1pm on Saturday". Everyone else -- which is probably 90% of the country -- works 6 days a week. That is, they only get 1 day a week off. 4 days a month. (And it is common for people to work 10 hour shifts.) As you say, 5-2 only became the standard because originally it was 7-0, which then became 6-1, which then became 5-2. Each of those transitions took decades. In Australia, the 5-2 work week didn't become a thing until 1948. It took a 2 year court case to change from a 6-1 schedule to a 5-2 schedule. At the time employers said, "Australia is committed to an unnecessary and dangerous experiment". Hong Kong only implemented the 5-2 schedule for government workers in 2006. Before that, they were expected to work on Saturdays. In Saudi Arabia, I believe that government workers still work 6-1 schedules.
therajiv 8y ago
Seems like this could have dramatic effects on some professions where 60+ hour workweeks are typical even outside of Korea, e.g. being an early startup employee or adhering to the strenuous pro gamer practice schedule. While it's probably not healthy to work that much, in the short-term, throwing more time at a job depending on the profession can sometimes optimize your reward function.
Bahamut 8y ago
An aside to the main content of the article, I found interesting that Mexico topped the list - Mexicans seem to uphold the stereotype that they’re super hard workers.
- philliphaydon 8y ago
  Japan is listed lower than the United States, and even New Zealand, so I can't really tell how valid this information is. Japan culture for working long ours is insane, you simply do not leave the office before your boss, people sit at the desks doing nothing until the boss leaves. This mindset exists in Korea too.
  - Bahamut 8y ago
    This probably includes more than just office jobs.
swfsql 8y ago
It will work for sure since bureaucrats always know better how to make everyone happy. Maybe workers will get less net income (and on a per hour as well) since employers will have to robotize or spend time training newcomers, but we can attack evil employers so who cares.
stockkid 8y ago
It is one thing to enact a policy and another to actually see to that it is enforced. And I feel that it will be particularly hard to enforce the reduced working week in the South Korean culture that often puts group ahead of individual. Perhaps any movement to follow the regulation will be construed as a selfish as attempt to defy the common good of the group.
- mcrae 8y ago
  Large companies actually enforce this fairly well. For instance, there is software on employees' computers which will hard shutdown the computer after a couple warnings. Companies which offer transport for employees have curtailed bus service from last departure at 12am to last departure at around 9pm. It is implemented in a fairly interesting way though. Before the new regulation, the overtime policies were calculated on a weekly basis. Now it is done on monthly basis. I think this is done to allow you to 'burst' above the 52h limit in some weeks while staying in compliance on monthly basis. Note that companies will deduct an hour a day for breaks whether you use it or not. So even a 52h week can mean 52+5=57/5=11.4h per day. So 5 straight nearly 12h days is technically not considered overtime.
  - aaronmdjones 8y ago
    From the article; it's a 40-hour week plus 12 hours of overtime, so under your model, 5 straight 9-hour days is not considered overtime, and anything more is.
tomohawk 8y ago
The best limit for something like this would be to just move to hourly pay. If people were paid for each hour worked, it would be self limiting. I've heard that in some countries, such as France, they actually post police outside of office parks to arrest people who work "too many hours". Makes it hard to start a business when you're limited in how much sweat equity you can put into it. And I'm sure police have better things to do than to prevent people working.
dogruck 8y ago
This is bad regulation. Moving on.
8bitsrule 8y ago
6.5 8-hour days, huh? Welp ... guess that's a tentative start.
zavi 8y ago
What if I want to work a lot? For example, if I want to do something with my life and my job fulfills that need. Do they just force employers to pay overtime or am I not allowed to work beyond those hours anyways?
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
It's clear by reading comments who here has children and who does not. If work is more fun to you than spending time with your children then there's something wrong. When I see comments like "I can't imagine anything more fun than work" I tend to think about my personal reflection upon my own standing in life in relation to work, which is "if I didn't have to work, I would spend all of my time being the best dad that I can be". Lucky for me I am home all day so I count my blessings already. I work so I can have a more comfortable home for myself and my family. Sure, sometimes - a lot of times that work is fun and addicting but nothing compares to the joy of being around my son.
- sneak 8y ago
  Children are optional and expensive, which makes them a luxury. Not everyone chooses to spend their time and money on luxuries such as children.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    I don't make much by developer pay standards and have not found having a child as being that expensive. Food, shelter, clothing, education - all within my limits right now. I guess it depends what your standards are.
  - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    Children are optional on an individual basis, but not on a societal basis. A society that does not produce sufficient numbers of children now will collapse in a few decades when the ratio of retirees to working age adults becomes too high.
    - sneak 8y ago
      That’s okay. Societies that continue to have fucktons of children will also collapse in a few decades, but in a markedly different way, with a lot more suffering.
mancerayder 8y ago
The modern work week is a sort of (21st century version of) indentured servitude for some, and a fantastic opportunity for learning/advancement for others. Unfortunately, you don't really get to choose and must try to coax yourself into believing the latter if you really want to be an FTE. In nowhere is this more obvious in tech where over the course of 15+ years I've experienced: "This is NOT a 9-5 role, we expect you to do what it takes to keep things running" "You're a highly paid engineer, therefore you should expect overtime" "This is a 24/7/365 shop, and everyone is expected to be available at all times" "This is a startup, and everyone is expected to be available at all times" "This is a financial company, and everyone is expected to be available at all times" (fellow team members) "Yup, this is a tech role, what do you expect. That's just the way it is" And so on and so forth. My thoughts on this are: 1) Some people like working long hours, some people don't, but all must conform to the long-hours lowest common denominator. Without realizing it, we're conforming to an ideology that benefits senior management/founders/shareholders. Is that good or bad? It depends on your position in life, but let's call it what it is. 2) Employment contracts don't contain hours, so sometimes you don't know you're going to have unpaid overtime in the form of on-call or crunch time until several weeks after you've started. This is indentured servitude because while you CAN quit the job (unlike the 17th century variant), you lose health care and ability to pay your mortgage/rent. 3) Salaries are high in tech, but if you take someone making, for example, $200,000 US, which is considered a lot, and you divide it by someone working 50 hours a week, they're only making $77 an hour. 4) I decided to become a consultant, which means I make significantly more than that, I get to keep myself physically fit because I have time to do so, and I'm a much happier person as a result. Want me to work overtime? With pleasure. 5) When you're a consultant, people think twice before putting you on-call or asking you to work 50-60 hours. When you're an employee, however... [Edit:] My philosophy in life is: you can make more money later, but you can NEVER get your time back. Keep that in mind before signing dotted lines. * Everything I've just said is US-specific. Europeans have slightly better laws to protect against certain abuses.
msiyer 8y ago
Being a workaholic is not much different from being an alcoholic. These are different forms of addiction. All workaholic societies are destroying themselves due to health complications and declining birthrates. Also, the problems of poverty and absolutely ridiculous wealth distribution patterns seem unsolvable. What more is needed to understand that the economy in its current form does not work in the long term?

253 points by dsr12 8y ago

Unless they have also come up with a solid definition of "work", this will be meaningless. Does it include work done from home? Work done on your own time? Will it allow us to turn off the cellphone all weekend? I say this as a government worker spending his Saturday night doing an online course I need to complete before a training day on Tuesday. I'm on salary and so do not get overtime. But to compete I have to pull the rabbit from the hat and somehow get everything done. That means doing work-related tasks in my own time. (This is a busy month. Things will get easier later in the year and everyone knows it. Nobody is complaining.)

readhn 8y ago
Many just starting out in the finance industry are pulling 80-100 hour weeks with no overtime. If you calculate per hour wages - a waitress gets paid more. BoA intern collapsed and died at work from over working not too long ago. Life goes on.
- overeater 8y ago
  Many waitresses and bartenders especially at high end places get paid more than almost any other profession, so it's an unfair comparison. My friends who have these jobs pull $200-400 a night in tips, so probably equivalent to $600/night if we include their hourly salary and that they don't pay taxes on it.
  - petre 8y ago
    Why would one pay taxes on tips? A tip is a gift to the person getting the tip, not to the government. If tips were taxed I would certainly not tip.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      It is legally required to pay taxes on tips in the US, whether cash or non-cash.
      - paulie_a 8y ago
        I might be legally required, but it really doesn't happen.
      - petre 8y ago
        From what I understand, if you're a waiter in the US you have a flat rate tax plan regardless of the amount of tips you receive. Otherwise how is the tip registered for taxing purposes? You just declare the tip amount as tax and the IRS takes your word for it?
readhn 8y ago
Goldman Sachs limits intern day to 17 hours haha https://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/goldman_sachs_reduces_intern_day_to_17_hours_after_death_of_bank_of_america_corp_intern/ https://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/goldman_sachs_reduces_inter...
hocuspocus 8y ago
Having worked 5 years in Korea I'd say the worst offenders don't let people work from home anyway. The main issue is that there's typically already a maximum overtime per week you can clock in. But this doesn't stop anyone to work beyond the limit and not claim those hours. Edit: HN is funny sometimes, I'm downvoted for stating simple facts. At least you could elaborate on how I somehow offended you.
- OSButler 8y ago
  Not to mention company outings/excursions during the weekends and additional courses/education after work. Japan is usually coming up when talking about crazy work hours, but South Korea appeared to be just as bad, so I'm curious how such regulation would actually apply if all those extra hours are not being counted to your actual work hours.
phkahler 8y ago
>> Does it include work done from home? Work done on your own time? Will it allow us to turn off the cellphone all weekend? It certainly should. I have a policy of not working from home except under rare circumstances. Not do I work on my own time. I don't carry a company cell phone or check email when I'm not there. I never set up the VPN to enable this kind of abuse either. Set some boundaries, it's good for you and contrary to what most people think you will probably be respected for it.
- maccard 8y ago
  I have work email on a pull system at home, and do have VPN access set up. Knowing that I can be contacted if my company desires it means that in return they are flexible with me. It's a two way street.
DSMan195276 8y ago
I would presume this is mostly limited to hourly work. It's not like this could ever be enforced for salaried workers because, as you pointed out, you usually don't get overtime and your hours are likely not even logged anyway. When talking about hourly work, the distinction is pretty clear as your hours are already getting logged. Legally, you are required to be paid for any work you do, including "work done on your own time". (Of course, that's largely true for the US. That may be less true in South Korea I suppose. And of course, they can get mad at you for working extra hours, but they still have to pay you for it).
- gsnedders 8y ago
  Note this varies a lot around the world. In plenty of places salaried workers working beyond their normal working hours are entitled to compensation for overtime (and are still subject to maximum working hours restrictions, minimum rest periods, etc.)
  - walshemj 8y ago
    Technically salaried roles manage their own work ie work late one week next week take Friday afternoon off to play golf which one team leader I know did at BT in the uk (played of a 6 as well)
    - gsnedders 8y ago
      Time off in lieu, like that, is one way of compensating overtime.
mikekchar 8y ago
I'm not super familiar with Korean culture, but often it's similar to Japanese culture. In Japan government pronouncements are either almost completely followed by people (spirit as well as letter of the law) or completely ignored by people. It's a consensus mentality and if the consensus is formed, then the social pressure to follow along is huge. In Japan, we've been getting more and more public holidays because people actually take them off (as opposed to their vacation time). We're up to 17 days now. In addition, a few years ago the government insisted that every government worker take 5 days off around Obon (Buddhist holiday usually in August). When I was working at the school, it was taken seriously and people were shipped off even if they wanted to work. Other things just don't get the consensus. For example, after a fairly recent overwork death, they instituted the idea that every second Friday should end at 3:00 pm. I think that was completely ignored. As far as effective measure like this, it's not so much crafting a law that describes what should happen, it's more about throwing spaghetti against the wall until it sticks. In other areas, I was around when sexual harassment was an unfortunate, but mostly accepted thing in business. Then one day the government said, "Don't do that" and it just changed over night. It's not like the government had been doing nothing before that, or that the introduced laws were particularly good -- it's just that for whatever reason the society was ready to accept it at that time. In the context of that kind of culture, I applaud the Korean government's actions. It may or may not have the desired effect today, but if they keep at it, it will probably just improve overnight. Also, the fact that this hits the news is good for other similar cultures like Japan. They see it and the people think, "Maybe we're backwards for following this old way of working". When enough people do that, then it just changes. Very, very, very different than the west.

fourthark 8y ago

> Being forced to soften the rollout of the policy indicates how much the plan was driven by the government, rather than workers themselves that rely on overtime to earn enough money. That changes the story, doesn't it? With so many of us ineligible for overtime in the US, being "management", we may wonder why anyone would work quite that much.

njarboe 8y ago
It seems that in the US that having to pay more for overtime is hurting people more than it helps them at this point. Especially people on the lower end of the wage scale. If you want/need to work more then usually you have too have two jobs with all the extra commuting and scheduling. It would be better if people could work 60hr for one employer instead of two.
- tbihl 8y ago
  That was certainly my experience. I used to ask if I could just report only 2/3rds of my overtime hours to get the same effective rate. Of course, I had no awareness of the software that would be flagging the 'ineffective manager' if I showed up as getting paid the higher rate, regardless of reality.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Shouldnt we be focusing on the fact that people need to work 60 hours rather than accomidating the system that enables it.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > Shouldnt we be focusing on the fact that people need to work 60 hours rather than accomidating the system that enables it. "Need" is relative. Programmers don't "need" to work 80 hour weeks, but if it's the difference between getting paid $80,000 and $160,000, some people will choose the longer hours, and there isn't inherently anything wrong with that. So why is it wrong when someone whose base salary is $25,000 makes the same choice?

jadedhacker 8y ago

Hopefully a tighter labor market will result in higher wages for workers, reducing the necessity of overtime. There's some evidence that in the united states that employers are so powerful that even the tightest labor market in years isn't increasing wages. EDIT: However, can you imagine such reforms being implemented here? This is the power of a leftist coalition capturing the state. As mild a reform as this is, it stretches the imagination for what is possible here.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
walshemj 8y ago
Hasn't made a huge difference in the EU though in non unionised companies - but I think anything would be an improvement. A minimum statutory leave policy would make more of a difference say 4 weeks minimum.
brightball 8y ago
Part of that is artificial price controls due to insurance. In markets controlled by insurance payouts, higher demand doesn’t allow the business to increase the price service.
dev_dull 8y ago
What evidence do you have that it's employers who are powerful holding down wages? Being a small business owner in America sucks. You can barely afford to employ anybody.
- yulaow 8y ago
  Honestly, that's what says any employer in any part of the world. I am currently in a SW-EU state and I hear the same exact words every day, and here the work market is far more heavy regulated and taxed.
  - hnisgroupthink 8y ago
    Because there are always businesses on the teetering edge of solvency, higher taxes just destroys them like a high tide of the ocean.

trynumber9 8y ago

[deleted]

konschubert 8y ago
Solution: work 50 hours one week and 45 hours the next.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
walshemj 8y ago
In the UK its the average hours worked over a 17 week period must not exceed 48 hours - I suspect this is how it will end up working. Of course what the article doesn't touch on is are there any "Spanish" practices around over time that happen in Korea eg deliberately going slow and holding back work to get more paid over time - or similar tactics that usually where solved by an under the counter brown envelope.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
serpix 8y ago
those hours are insanity. Your life is worth more than this.
- calabin 8y ago
  they're really not insane, especially if you're enjoying what you're doing and being compensated for it.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    Not really many studies have shown that after 35 / 40 hours of work in a week has negative effects. maybe like Japan Korea has a presentism problem ie people stretch out work or bike shed to look good. Anyone who has pulled an all nighter knows that after about 36 hours awake you start to see things and can make serious mistakes.

miguelrochefort 8y ago

This is ridiculous. It all depends on the person and the job. Some people can work a lot more than others. Likewise, some jobs are less demanding than others. This is just as bad as minimum wage laws. How do these people come up with such absurd laws?

sb8244 8y ago
Are you familiar with the working culture in Korea? I only spent a few months there but it became clear from what I heard from professionals and students that 60+ hour work week is the average. Sure some jobs may be more than that in a healthy market, but it didn't seem like it was healthy.
- miguelrochefort 8y ago
  I don't deny that there's a problem. I argue that the proposed solution is short-sighted and inadequate. What are the incentives for companies to decrease work hours?What are the incentives for people to work less? What should people do with their time that's more beneficial than working? What compromises will these people have to make now that they're earning less (assuming their overtime was paid)? How will the productivity of Korean companies be affected by this 25-40% drop in employee work time? Hopefully companies will realize that increased work hours have diminishing returns and/or invest in automation to cope with the lack of resources. Hopefully the government doesn't then introduce even sillier laws (such as taxing automation).
  - sb8244 8y ago
    The issue is largely cultural from my understanding. There is a "seniors in charge" mentality in Korea that causes workers to get in before their boss and leave after. This artificially increases the work day while probably not increasing productivity that much. I'm certainly not close to an expert in it, and I don't want to pretend to be, but I don't think the government can do much to solve the problem other than put caps in when it is as bad as it is. It's a deeply rooted cultural issue that I hope this will be a reason to stop.

zebraflask 8y ago

These are the same people who overpay for BTC and, if I remember an HN article from a little while ago, have "death ceremonies" where their employees are made to imagine their own deaths to prove loyalty to the company. Make of that what you will.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

torpfactory 8y ago

The amount of work we do is such a complicated issue. Here are a few primer questions to get you started: How do we quantify amount worked on the continuum of knowledge workers vs. physical laborers? How much are working hours determined by personal preferences and desires (getting promoted, actually enjoy job, etc) vs. demands imposed by management/project requirements? How much of time worked depends on the culture (of a company, of an industry, of a country)? How to quantify work "in the office" vs. at home "answering a few emails? Some people like being really flexible. I personally prefer very binary working/not working lifestyle. How much should we work throughout our careers (I prefer the idea that we can "turn down the volume" on work during child rearing years, but this is in direct opposition to typical career advancement timelines)? Is there any reasonable definition of a "full work week"? What is it (40 hours?) Should we have a minimum wage at all? Does a minimum wage increase productivity by artificially making labor more expensive?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
halflings 8y ago
"Should we have a minimum wage at all? Does a minimum wage increase productivity by artificially making labor more expensive?" The goal of minimum wage is not to increase productivity, but provide a "safety net" for people at the bottom of the pyramid salary-wise. Public education and healthcare also artificially reduce the price of these services, but the goal again is to provide a safety net to all those that otherwise would not be able to afford them.
- hdiujjf 8y ago
  Minimum wage ensures the most marginal at risk employee becomes unemployed. Economic illiterarcy on full display.
  - jfoutz 8y ago
    > Economic illiterarcy on full display What’s your plan to fix that? The school of hard knocks? Public education? I mean, as long as it exists, people are going to be exploited. Specifically not paid fair market value.

benatkin 8y ago

What if John McCarthy or Richard Feynman had been limited to 52 hours a week? Or more recently, pg or sama? Or less recently, Albert Einstein or Alan Turing? Edit: I posted it without reading the article, but it's worse than expected. Execs can go to prison. Edit 2: Having a working hour limit applied across the board could result in knowledge workers having to track their time, which works great for some but not for others.

Teeer 8y ago
Because we shouldn't sacrifice millions of people's free time just so we can have a couple geniuses do lots of work?
throwaway080383 8y ago
Academics and entrepreneurs don't get paid by the hour.
- benatkin 8y ago
  Not all countries have certain types of salaried employees exempt from overtime and overtime pay. South Korea doesn't appear to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_hours_in_South_Korea#Different_working_hours_in_terms_of_jobs_and_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_hours_in_South_Korea#D...
  - throwaway080383 8y ago
    That's fine, but then "hours worked" at best measures how much time was physically spent "at work", and will be entirely disconnected from how much time guys like McCarthy, Turing, Einstein, and Feynman thought about their research. They weren't doing it for the overtime pay.
    - benatkin 8y ago
      I picture a lot of them living at their office, like Richard Stallman was in the Free as in Freedom [1]. If their managers had to worry about going to prison, they'd probably be prohibited from working at their offices. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_as_in_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_as_in_Freedom

fareesh 8y ago

How does this work exactly? If you are an employee and your boss calls you and asks you to work the 53rd hour, what do you do?

tbihl 8y ago
Grumble about illegal work practices on the subway ride to work, one would assume.
pboutros 8y ago
Your response is presumably somewhere between: (1) what you'd do if your boss asked you to murder someone (2) what you'd do if your boss asked you to make them a coffee. (In all seriousness, you probably just go to their labor board website and fill out a form or something.)
- fareesh 8y ago
  I guess my point was that it's complicated from a relationship point of view. Let's say I've worked 3 years at a particular job. This law goes into effect. The following week my boss asks me to do 53 hours of work. What do I do now? I don't want to do the 53rd hour. Do I say no to the boss? Sure maybe he can't legally do anything punitive, but that doesn't mean he won't. What happens to my relationships at work? What happens when my peers decide to do the 53rd hour of work and so they are seen as more valuable to the company? Do management folks start seeing me as less of a team player? What if I go to the labor board? Now the company is chastized for asking me to work beyond 53 hours. What does that do for my relationships at work? My reviews? Promotion prospects? Let's say I move to another job. Word gets around that I'm a litigious sort of guy who goes to the labour board when I'm asked to work more than 52 hours. Does this law protect me in a practical way? Is enforcing this law possible in a practical way, which does not cause other problems for the employee?
  - jackvalentine 8y ago
    Changing cultures requires courage - if you can’t be the one putting themselves on the line then the least you can do is not be the one oppressing them for doing so.

scotchio 8y ago

I was just having a dumb convo with a friend about how JUST a simple 3-day weekend can make you way more productive for like the next 2 weeks. Refreshed, on top of personal life stuff, and ready to go. Why do we work 5 on, 2 off? How did that naturally become the standard. I'd argue that if our economy did a rolling 5 on, 3 off for everyone the whole output would net MORE productivity overall

erkaes 8y ago
I think this might work for cognitive-based works like programming but not for muscle-based works like doing constructions.
- scotchio 8y ago
  Yep, true
freedomben 8y ago
Totally agree. I worked at a company that gave us the option of working 4/10s (Mon-Thurs, 10 hour shifts) or what we called a 9/80 where you would Mon-Fri the first week, but only Mon-Thurs the second week (9 hour shifts). The 9/80 was the most productive schedule ever. Having a 3 day weekend every other weekend helped me recharge and really improved my work:life balance.
knuththetruth 8y ago
>How did that naturally become the standard. It didn’t. People fought and died for this and many other protections, engaged in massive disruptions of their workplaces and society at large. If history and the developing world are at all examples, businesses would rather work people to death and use every form of coercion possible to drive down the price of labor. The degree to which we forget that this and are unwilling to do the same is the degree to which these rights will be eroded.
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  To add to that...in the country I live in (a developing country in Asia), 5-2 is NOT the standard. If you work for a western company or have a skilled white collar type job you work either 5-2 or 5½-1½. That is, you work a half day every Saturday. It is so common that every commercial lease I've seen covers it. e.g. "we provide air conditioning from 8am-6pm Monday to Friday and 8am-1pm on Saturday". Everyone else -- which is probably 90% of the country -- works 6 days a week. That is, they only get 1 day a week off. 4 days a month. (And it is common for people to work 10 hour shifts.) As you say, 5-2 only became the standard because originally it was 7-0, which then became 6-1, which then became 5-2. Each of those transitions took decades. In Australia, the 5-2 work week didn't become a thing until 1948. It took a 2 year court case to change from a 6-1 schedule to a 5-2 schedule. At the time employers said, "Australia is committed to an unnecessary and dangerous experiment". Hong Kong only implemented the 5-2 schedule for government workers in 2006. Before that, they were expected to work on Saturdays. In Saudi Arabia, I believe that government workers still work 6-1 schedules.

therajiv 8y ago

Seems like this could have dramatic effects on some professions where 60+ hour workweeks are typical even outside of Korea, e.g. being an early startup employee or adhering to the strenuous pro gamer practice schedule. While it's probably not healthy to work that much, in the short-term, throwing more time at a job depending on the profession can sometimes optimize your reward function.

Bahamut 8y ago

An aside to the main content of the article, I found interesting that Mexico topped the list - Mexicans seem to uphold the stereotype that they’re super hard workers.

philliphaydon 8y ago
Japan is listed lower than the United States, and even New Zealand, so I can't really tell how valid this information is. Japan culture for working long ours is insane, you simply do not leave the office before your boss, people sit at the desks doing nothing until the boss leaves. This mindset exists in Korea too.
- Bahamut 8y ago
  This probably includes more than just office jobs.

swfsql 8y ago

It will work for sure since bureaucrats always know better how to make everyone happy. Maybe workers will get less net income (and on a per hour as well) since employers will have to robotize or spend time training newcomers, but we can attack evil employers so who cares.

stockkid 8y ago

It is one thing to enact a policy and another to actually see to that it is enforced. And I feel that it will be particularly hard to enforce the reduced working week in the South Korean culture that often puts group ahead of individual. Perhaps any movement to follow the regulation will be construed as a selfish as attempt to defy the common good of the group.

mcrae 8y ago
Large companies actually enforce this fairly well. For instance, there is software on employees' computers which will hard shutdown the computer after a couple warnings. Companies which offer transport for employees have curtailed bus service from last departure at 12am to last departure at around 9pm. It is implemented in a fairly interesting way though. Before the new regulation, the overtime policies were calculated on a weekly basis. Now it is done on monthly basis. I think this is done to allow you to 'burst' above the 52h limit in some weeks while staying in compliance on monthly basis. Note that companies will deduct an hour a day for breaks whether you use it or not. So even a 52h week can mean 52+5=57/5=11.4h per day. So 5 straight nearly 12h days is technically not considered overtime.
- aaronmdjones 8y ago
  From the article; it's a 40-hour week plus 12 hours of overtime, so under your model, 5 straight 9-hour days is not considered overtime, and anything more is.

tomohawk 8y ago

The best limit for something like this would be to just move to hourly pay. If people were paid for each hour worked, it would be self limiting. I've heard that in some countries, such as France, they actually post police outside of office parks to arrest people who work "too many hours". Makes it hard to start a business when you're limited in how much sweat equity you can put into it. And I'm sure police have better things to do than to prevent people working.

dogruck 8y ago

This is bad regulation. Moving on.

8bitsrule 8y ago

6.5 8-hour days, huh? Welp ... guess that's a tentative start.

zavi 8y ago

What if I want to work a lot? For example, if I want to do something with my life and my job fulfills that need. Do they just force employers to pay overtime or am I not allowed to work beyond those hours anyways?

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

It's clear by reading comments who here has children and who does not. If work is more fun to you than spending time with your children then there's something wrong. When I see comments like "I can't imagine anything more fun than work" I tend to think about my personal reflection upon my own standing in life in relation to work, which is "if I didn't have to work, I would spend all of my time being the best dad that I can be". Lucky for me I am home all day so I count my blessings already. I work so I can have a more comfortable home for myself and my family. Sure, sometimes - a lot of times that work is fun and addicting but nothing compares to the joy of being around my son.

sneak 8y ago
Children are optional and expensive, which makes them a luxury. Not everyone chooses to spend their time and money on luxuries such as children.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I don't make much by developer pay standards and have not found having a child as being that expensive. Food, shelter, clothing, education - all within my limits right now. I guess it depends what your standards are.
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  Children are optional on an individual basis, but not on a societal basis. A society that does not produce sufficient numbers of children now will collapse in a few decades when the ratio of retirees to working age adults becomes too high.
  - sneak 8y ago
    That’s okay. Societies that continue to have fucktons of children will also collapse in a few decades, but in a markedly different way, with a lot more suffering.

mancerayder 8y ago

The modern work week is a sort of (21st century version of) indentured servitude for some, and a fantastic opportunity for learning/advancement for others. Unfortunately, you don't really get to choose and must try to coax yourself into believing the latter if you really want to be an FTE. In nowhere is this more obvious in tech where over the course of 15+ years I've experienced: "This is NOT a 9-5 role, we expect you to do what it takes to keep things running" "You're a highly paid engineer, therefore you should expect overtime" "This is a 24/7/365 shop, and everyone is expected to be available at all times" "This is a startup, and everyone is expected to be available at all times" "This is a financial company, and everyone is expected to be available at all times" (fellow team members) "Yup, this is a tech role, what do you expect. That's just the way it is" And so on and so forth. My thoughts on this are: 1) Some people like working long hours, some people don't, but all must conform to the long-hours lowest common denominator. Without realizing it, we're conforming to an ideology that benefits senior management/founders/shareholders. Is that good or bad? It depends on your position in life, but let's call it what it is. 2) Employment contracts don't contain hours, so sometimes you don't know you're going to have unpaid overtime in the form of on-call or crunch time until several weeks after you've started. This is indentured servitude because while you CAN quit the job (unlike the 17th century variant), you lose health care and ability to pay your mortgage/rent. 3) Salaries are high in tech, but if you take someone making, for example, $200,000 US, which is considered a lot, and you divide it by someone working 50 hours a week, they're only making $77 an hour. 4) I decided to become a consultant, which means I make significantly more than that, I get to keep myself physically fit because I have time to do so, and I'm a much happier person as a result. Want me to work overtime? With pleasure. 5) When you're a consultant, people think twice before putting you on-call or asking you to work 50-60 hours. When you're an employee, however... [Edit:] My philosophy in life is: you can make more money later, but you can NEVER get your time back. Keep that in mind before signing dotted lines. * Everything I've just said is US-specific. Europeans have slightly better laws to protect against certain abuses.

msiyer 8y ago

Being a workaholic is not much different from being an alcoholic. These are different forms of addiction. All workaholic societies are destroying themselves due to health complications and declining birthrates. Also, the problems of poverty and absolutely ridiculous wealth distribution patterns seem unsolvable. What more is needed to understand that the economy in its current form does not work in the long term?