South Korea tried to push an almost 70-hour work week, but was forced to rethink after millennials and Gen Z protested

• South Korea is rethinking a 69-hour work week proposal after millennials and Gen Z protested.
• The proposal was a potential solution to business complaints about being unable to meet deadlines.

The South Korean government is rethinking a plan to increase the work week to 69 hours, after a furious wave of backlash from Millennials, Gen Z, and labor unions, according to numerous reports.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's senior secretary Kim Eun-Hye said the government is taking a new "direction" after negative public opinion about the proposed increase, adding that the government wants to protect worker's rights, CNN reported on Sunday.

The government suggested a new plan earlier in March to allow employers to increase the maximum weekly working hours to 69 hours, from the current limit of 52 hours, per The Korea Herald.

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At present, companies must limit overtime work to 12 hours per week, according to measures introduced in 2018 by Yoon's predecessor.

The changes were a potential solution to business complaints about being unable to meet deadlines because of the working limit.

But the government has been forced to revise its strategy after opposition from younger generations including Millennials and Gen Z, a number of reports say.

After ditching the policy, the government will attempt to "communicate better with the public, especially with generation Z and millennials," the Guardian reported Kim Eun-Hye as saying.

"The proposal does not make any sense… and is so far from what workers actually want," 25-year-old Jung Junsik, a university student from Seoul told CNN. "My own father works excessively every week and there is no boundary between work and life."

Labor unions like the Federation of Korean Trade Unions have attacked the plan calling it "toxic" and "anachronistic," and saying that the government would be "forcing workers into ultra-long hours of intensive work," the Financial Times reported.

South Korea is infamous for its long working hours, with the average citizen working for 1,915 hours in 2021, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That ranks among the five highest working hours in developed nations, and well above the 1,716 hours worked on average by people in the OECD. In the US, the average worker worked 1,767 hours in 2021.

Many Korean workers have lost their lives to "Gwarosa" — a Korean word for death by overwork, as the country's working hours exceed the average across the world.

Yoon, a conservative from the People Power Party, won the presidential election in 2022 and criticized the 52-hour work week saying workers should labor for long hours, last year.

"Workers should be allowed to work 120 hours a week and then take a good rest," he said, per the Korea Times.