Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
Korea ranks 2nd in average working hours among OECD nations
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Korean employees work night hours t in this file photo/ Korea Times file
By Kim Bo-eun
By Kim Bo-eun
Korea has the second-highest average number of working hours among the 34 member states of the OECD.
Company employees and self-employed Koreans worked an average of 2,124 hours per person last year, second only to Mexico, at 2,228 hours.
Koreans work 354 more hours every year than the OECD average of 1,770. This calculates to 6.8 more hours of work each week.
In addition, the average number of hours worked by Koreans rose by 45, up from 2,079 hours in 2013.
Korea had the highest average number of working hours until 2007 when Mexico exceeded this.
The lowest average of working hours is in Germany, at 1,371 hours a year. This is equivalent to eight months of working hours in Korea.
Other countries with fewer than 1,500 working hours were the Netherlands (1,425 hours), Norway (1,427 hours), Denmark (1,436 hours) and France (1,473 hours).
Countries such as Japan, the U.S. and Italy's working hours are close to the OECD average.