President Lee: “I hope you make good use of a four-day workweek without wage cuts”

[Financial News] On the 28th, President Lee urged the use of a four-day workweek without wage cuts, saying, “The history of labor development is the history of shorter working hours.”
That day, President Lee shared a post by Kim Kyung-ja, senior secretary for social affairs at Cheong Wa Dae, on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “Shorter working hours resulting from increased productivity also create more jobs,” and adding, “I hope you make good use of a four-day workweek without wage cuts.”
Earlier, in a post on X titled “I can do a 4.5-day workweek without a pay cut, too!”, Kim introduced the “Work-Life Balance +4.5 Project,” launched this year by the Lee Jae-myung administration. A total of 347 companies are currently participating in the program. When working hours are reduced by agreement between labor and management, the program provides up to 600,000 won per worker per month.
Citing the example of a manufacturing company in Busan, Kim explained that it had designated the third Friday of each month as a paid day off, reducing employees’ weekly working hours by an average of two hours while maintaining their wages. She added that improvements to the manufacturing process to accommodate shorter working hours had also cut product production time by 8%.
Kim emphasized, “Workers benefit from having time off while keeping their wages unchanged, and companies benefit from increasing productivity without a financial burden,” adding, “It’s a win-win for both workers and companies.”
[email protected] Choi Jong-geun Reporter