Short-Hour Work Expands as Korea’s Smallest Workplaces Cut Hours Fastest
Monthly working hours at South Korean workplaces with fewer than five regular employees fell by 10 hours between 2020 and 2025, while the number of people working fewer than 15 hours a week increased 36.4 percent. The trend is intensifying concerns about gaps in labor protections and social insurance.
Working hours have fallen across South Korea, but the decline has been substantially sharper at the country’s smallest workplaces, highlighting the growth of short-hour employment and concerns over workers who remain outside key labor protections.
An analysis of the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s workplace labor survey found that average monthly working hours for all employees declined from 160.6 hours in 2020 to 153.8 hours in 2025, a drop of 6.8 hours. South Korea’s annual hours actually worked per employee, as reported to the OECD, also fell for four consecutive years, from 1,904 hours in 2022 to 1,846 hours in 2025.
The shift was most pronounced at businesses with one to four regular employees. Average monthly hours at those workplaces decreased from 152.1 to 142.1 over five years, a reduction of 10 hours, or 6.6 percent. At workplaces with 300 or more employees, the decline was 4.5 hours, from 162.8 to 158.3. As a result, the working-hour gap between the smallest and largest establishments widened from 10.7 hours to 16.2 hours.
The figures do not necessarily indicate that long-hours practices alone are improving. Weaker labor demand during an economic slowdown and the expansion of part-time and ultra-short-hour jobs may also be driving the decline. Research published by the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency showed that 30.2 percent of regular workers at establishments with one to four employees worked 36 hours or less per week in 2024, the highest share among workplace-size groups.
Ultra-short-hour employment has also grown rapidly. The number of employed people working one to 14 hours a week rose from 1.304 million in 2020 to 1.779 million in 2025, an increase of 475,000, or 36.4 percent. Their share of total employment increased from 4.8 percent to 6.2 percent. Temporary and daily workers at businesses with fewer than five employees saw their average monthly hours fall by 13.2 hours over the same period, to 69.7 hours.
The trend has policy implications because employees whose scheduled hours average less than 15 per week over four weeks are excluded from some protections, including weekly paid rest days and annual paid leave. The Korea Development Institute has argued that sharp differences in employer costs around the 15-hour weekly and 60-hour monthly thresholds may encourage hiring just below those limits.
The government plans to change employment insurance eligibility next year from an hours-based test to an income-based standard. Workers earning at least 800,000 won a month will be eligible even if their hours are short, and income from multiple workplaces will be combined. The change is intended to narrow the social-insurance gap as fragmented and short-hour employment becomes more common.