By Lee Hyo-sik
Lee Sung-jin, a 34-year old manager at one of Korea’s largest electronics manufacturers, normally spends more than 12 hours a day at work from Monday through Friday. Even on weekends, he is often called in by his superiors to perform additional duties.
He is legally allowed to take a break from work for around 15 days per year whenever he wants to after giving notice. But he usually goes on a five-day summer vacation in August and lets the remaining holidays go unused.
Lee does so because he is concerned that his job status may become insecure and he may get bad reviews from his superiors and peers if he uses all of his paid leave.
Lee is a typical salaried worker of Korea today, working the longest hours and taking the fewest holidays among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Koreans worked an average of 2,256 hours in 2008, down from 2,316 hours a year earlier. But it was still the highest among the 30 OECD members and far more than the OECD average of 1,764 hours.
After surveying 952 salaried employees here, Job Korea, an online job portal, said Monday that they are given an average of 12.2 days in annual leave but spend only 8.4 days for vacation on average.
Nearly 66 percent said they are unable to take a break from work when they want to because of the heavy workload, the unfriendly workplace atmosphere regarding holiday takers and the negative review from superiors. Low-ranked workers find it more difficult to take annual leave than managers and other senior-level employees.
Compared to their counterparts in other advanced countries, Korean workers are heavily overworked and vacation-deprived.
According to a recent survey of 12,500 salaried employees in 24 nations conducted by global marketing research Ipsos, 89 percent of interviewed workers in France said they usually take all of the legally-guaranteed annual leave, the highest ratio among the polled countries. Argentina came in second at 80 percent, followed by Spain at 77 percent and Germany at 75 percent. In contrast, only 53 percent of Korean workers said they spent all their vacation days, ranking 21st. Japan came in last as only 33 percent of employees in the world’s third largest economy take all holidays.
Ipsos said European workers find it easier to take a break from work, compared to their counterparts in North America and the Asia-Pacific region. It said those who do not use all their holidays often put priorities for work over health and personal welfare.