Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Lost]

Curious..........How long do your Korean Spouses work for at there offices/ businesses? I understand that korean offices/ managers work there staff like slaves and that the current economic down turn really has many workers working longer/ harder hours.

Also ....do any of them receive overtime? vacations over a week a year?

Thanks for your reply's

[kasain]

I know the married couples working at my public school work from 8am to 10pm. no overtime or extra pay m-f. and they work every other saturday. 8-5.

[crossmr]

Koreans have very little ability to get any real time off. If you marry a korean woman and you want to actually do something with your time its basically your responsibility to try and get a job that pays enough that she can quit so you can do whatever you want on your time off. Otherwise if you can score big time off, prepare to spend it in korea, because she will only be able to get the same time off once in a blue moon.

[DaeSung]

Here's my take -
(I work for a large Korean company at HQ. Including employees of affiliated group companies about between 5,500 and 6,000 people work in our office building.)

On average we send home the busses at 7pm. If one was to ride one of these buses and factor in the hour commute you'd say most employees could be home by 8pm. However not one single person in my group (over 40 people at the moment) rides the bus. Someone rides the bus, I�m just not sure who it is. When I stay late (usually I leave the office by 6:30 because I'm a foreigner and don't care to change my life to the will of corporate Korea), most of the employees are at the office until 8 pm, that�s if they have nothing to do. Many leave around that time to go to business diners with Koreans from other companies or other groups within our company. Either way those guys will not be getting home before 12 if they go out for diner and drinks. Many of the employees do this two or three times a week. If the employee has work to do then they will stay until 10 or 11... and usually past 12 at least once a week.

All employees are encouraged to come out at least once during the weekend.

Employees that are not middle management receive overtime on Saturday if the boss okays it (its a standard payment for all employees 120,000 won). Some boss with require employees to come out and then not approve the overtime, or tell the employee not to register that they came out. Employees are eligible for overtime during the week if they stay past 11pm (company checks when you register for overtime) for a flat rate of 25,000 won (to cover the taxi ride home) again this is if your boss will approve it.

That said... in most cases the same amount of work could be done if everyone worked from 9 to 6. I know I know lots of people will disagree with me, but from where I'm sitting (going on 4 years in a Korean company) in almost all cases better time management would allow for all work to be completed within working hours.

So the short answer your average Korean at our company will be home before 10pm once a week and later the rest of the days. They will go out to eat with friends/co-workers two times a week. They will be at work later than 10 the other 2 days. They will likely come out on either Saturday or Sunday and work half the day.

They will do the same amount of work a productive person can do in 20 or 30 hours a week.

Another thing is most of them don't want to go home as it means they will have to spend time with their family. This post does not apply to senior management.

Hope that helps.

[DaeSung]

Oh and the vacation. Due to the current economic situation many Korean companies required all employees to use all vacation at the beginning of the year. (Our company gives personal vacation days + national holidays + 4 days summer vacation). Our company wide goal is for employees to use 25% of their vacation (if they don't we now have to pay them for the days at the end of the year, the government has finally started to check this).

Last year, and the last 2 years before that, I used all my vacation. I don't know anyone that used more than 50% of their vacation time.

Sounds kind of strange but when the economy is bad Korean get vacation, to save the company money, and so they don't have to fire people. During the good times most people took about 5 days off during the summer.

[Faunaki]

My husband's first job - 9-9 maybe 3 days vacation.

Job now - 9-6, one day off a month, 3 days vacation but must put in one 9am-12am a month.

[shaunew]

My wife is a public school teacher. She works 8:30 to 4:30 everyday. Gets a few months off paid per year. Has to work every other Saturday.

[Oreovictim]

Okay, I don't have a spouse, but my girlfriend is in accounting and works 9:00-6:00, but there are quite a few days where she's stuck at work until 9:00. And for about one month of the year, she's there until midnight and has to go in on the weekends, too. No thanks. It's too early to ask her, but I'm really curious how much she gets paid for that gig.

[Real Reality]

Most Women Quit Work to Get Married
Chosun Ilbo (March 22, 2006)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200603/200603220029.html

[crossmr]

[Fredbob]

Marry a nurse or a medical tech, preferably one who works in a hospital rather than a clinic. My wife works in a hospital, decent time off, rarely has to work past 5:30. At least 2 weeks vacation days, excellent medical benifits, including discounts.

Oh, and a lot of them are pretty interested in foriegn guys:
1- It's a relatively low stress job, most want to keep it after marriage, many Kguys are still not into that.
2- If their English is good enough, they can make sweet dollars if they move out of Korea, at least in the US.

My wife is constantly bugging me to set her friends up with good, marriage material, men.

[Guri Guy]

[NoExplode]

[crossmr]

[movybuf]

My wife works as an after school teacher at an elementary school. So she only works a few hours a day.