By Kim Tae-jong
Kim Jin-young, 29, a nurse at a Seoul-based hospital, has never taken a vacation longer than four days since 2005 when she started work there.
She has long hoped to travel to Europe but can’t pack and leave as a long vacation is taboo at her workplace. “Unless you’re very sick or give a birth to a baby, you can’t expect to take a holiday longer than a week,” Kim said. “A vacation longer than a week is out of the question here due to the shortage of nurses.”
Under her contract of employment, she is allowed to take a break from work for as long as 17 days this year, but she can’t take such a long time off.
She takes seven days off for the whole year — four straight days at any one time. She receives pay for the unused holidays at the end of year.
“If you take a long vacation, your colleagues have to work as your substitute, sacrificing their holidays and working for six days. So I can’t ask for a long break,” she said.
Kim’s case may sound exceptional. But most Korean workers, known notoriously as workaholics by international norms, are still afraid of asking their bosses for long leave.
According to 2008 statistics, Koreans work the longest hours and take the fewest holidays among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The average Korean works 2,256 hours a year, the longest among the 34 OECD members and far more than the OECD average of 1,764 hours.
Many people like Kim can’t take a long vacation and many others are simply not used to a long holiday.
“When I take a long vacation, I feel uneasy and worried about work that I haven’t finished,” said Kwon Young-jin, a 38-year-old office worker in Seoul. “And you feel obliged to show you’re a hard worker who doesn’t go on a long vacation.”
The lack of long holidays is more often seen in low-ranked workers who find it more difficult to take annual leave than managers and other senior-level employees.
Choi Kyung-ah, 32-year-old man, who works at an auto repair shop in Gyeonggi Province, said he prefers working to a long vacation, expecting extra pay for the unused holidays.
“I also feel like taking a long vacation with my family, but it costs money. And I personally don’t know what to do. Probably, two or three days would be enough, I guess. And when I get paid for the unused holidays at the end of year, I feel like I’ve been given an unexpected bonus.”
A recent survey by online survey firm Embrain also shows most workers here have difficulty in taking a long vacation.
Conducted on 1,000 workers, the survey revealed that about 88 percent of respondents said they feel the lack of a “break” while only 12 percent said they rest enough. About 68 percent said it wasn’t easy for them to take a long break from work.
As the main reason, about 35 percent said they feel guilty about taking a long holiday because of their peers. Some 29 percent said they were worried about extra work when they return, 20 percent said they simply can’t because their bosses do not take long holidays, and 16 percent said they were worried a long vacation would have a bad influence on their work performance evaluation.
Although the survey shows most workers want to take a long break, ironically more than half of them prefer financial compensation to holidays. About 55 percent of respondents said they would be willing to choose to sacrifice a 15 day vacation and instead work if they were given an extra 2 million won.
But experts say Koreans are reluctant to, or simply cannot, take a long vacation mainly because of the traditional workplace culture.
“We don’t have any systematical and mandatory measures to allow employees a long vacation,” said Kim Young-sun, a research professor at the Graduate School of Leisure Business at the Seoul School of Integrated Science & Technology.
He has recently published a book, entitled “The Lost 10 Days,” in which he examines why a long vacation is seen as a “sin” in Korea.
“Most companies seem to believe hard-working for long hours is the key to success and leads to competitiveness. But they should know it was only true in the period when a country is heading toward industrialization,” he said.
Medical doctors also agree that long hours of work without breaks can do harm to people physically and mentally, noting many Koreans suffer from so-called “burnout syndrome,” a term referring to long-term exhaustion, a loss of interest in work and high levels of irritability.
“This condition is increasing in prevalence and can pose a serious health problem,” Doctor Kang Hee-cheol of the family medical department at Yonsei Severance Hospital said. “If you always feel tired and exhausted even with enough sleep, you need to see a doctor.”
People can overcome an initial stage of “burnout syndrome” by sleeping enough and taking some rest, but they need medication and other medical treatment if it gets worse, he said.
“When they get to the stage of being ‘worn out,’ they can’t concentrate on work and consequently show a low level of work performance. That’s why we need a quality break from work,” he said.