• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.13-38
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• 2001

The question about whether a shorter workweek may increase employment has been a serious issue and been furiously debated among collective bargainers. The advocators recommend publicly that a reduction in standard working hours will provide benefits to the unemployed through the provision of new jobs, and also can improve the quality of life workers. The opponents argue that a shorter workweek will increase labor costs and induce firms to reduce their production levels, and consequently cut back their demand for labor. Although the debate is still continuing, considerable has been made toward achieving the goal workweek reduction. The analytical framework of this paper is a Putty-clay-model, in which the short-and long-term impacts of changes in working time on the employment associated with the interrelations of wages, prices, hourly labour productivity, the firm's labor demand, business cycle and economic growth etc. must be analyzed.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-28
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• 2014

We use a set of Korea panel data to estimate effects of legal working hours reduction on actual hours worked and employment effects, through panel econometrics methods. Taking account of sequential decrease in legal hours worked since 2004, we estimate the relationship between legal and actual working hours by size of industries. It is found that one hour reduction of legal hours per week caused 0.44 to 1.05 actual hours worked on average per week, depending on different industrial sizes. Also, estimated employment effects were not unanimously determined, rather they turn out to be clearly size-dependent, which provide different results from exiting literature. Our analysis proposed in this work can be restrictive as, for instance, there is significant lack of data for foreign workers, particularly in the small-sized industries. Subsequent empirical analysis is expected.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.33-78
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• 2002

This study analyzes effects of the proposed reduction of legal working hours in Korea in which base wage is unchanged with working hours reduction. The theoretical analysis shows that a reduction of legal working hours would result in less than equal size reduction of actual working hours, and increase in wages. On the other hand, the effects on employment is ambiguous depending on the substitution effect and scale effect. An empirical analysis based on macro-economic model simulation supports the theoretical conjecture. It has been found that with the reduction of legal working hours, real wages and consumption increase while actual working hours decreases about half of the legal hours reduction. In addition, the immediate and outright imposition of legal hours reduction on all sectors of the economy is found to create a cost push inflation and reduce GDP, investment, and employment. This negative effects are lessened as the reduction of legal hours is gradually made and/or some measures to absorb the cost shock such as abolition of paid monthly leave are employed together.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.63-99
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• 2019

This paper estimates the effect of the minimum wage increment on employment and work-hour of new workers in Korea using the data from the Survey on Labor Conditions by Type of Employment (SLCTE) from 2008 to 2017. We construct worker groups by sex, age, and education to mitigate endogeneity problem in estimating the effect of minimum wage increment. The result shows that the minimum wage increment leads to decrease of new employment and increase of the ratio of new workers who work less than 15 hours per week. Especially, women, the elderly, the youth, and under high school education level group are sensitive to the minimum wage increment.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.31-68
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• 2017

This study examined the moonlighting behavior in Korea, to which relatively less attention has been paid. Based on the wage earners of 25 to 65 year old married, the results show that about 1.4% of the sample have dual jobs, working very long hours, on average 60 hours for a week combining both the primary job and the secondary job. The results of the fixed effects logit model on the moonlighting participation indicate that the wage rate and the hours of work in the primary job have a negative effect on moonlighting participation while the insecurity of the primary job appears to lead to a higher probability of taking a secondary job. The results of the moonlighting hours analysis suggest that hours worked in the primary job have a negative effect on moonlight hours while the wage of the primary job does not appear to have any significant effect on moonlighting hours. Interestingly enough, the wage of the secondary job appears to have a negative impact on moonlighting hours, which might be very plausible considering the long working hours moonlighters are engaged in.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• autumn
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• pp.316-322
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• 2002

In case of reducing working time, it is difficult that the construction industry is analyzed far-reaching effects caused by a reduction of working time, by approaching with just the total amount of work. Because it has the properties such as the singularity, the outdoor using, a sense of the season unlike other industries. In order to analyze the effect of a reduction of working time on the construction industry, the example of a reduction of working time in domestic other industries related with it was analyzed intensively first. And an example in Japan, which is similar to our existing related laws and industrial structure among foreign construction industries was analyzed, and a relation with the domestic construction industries and an issue were drown a conclusion. This was applied to a field worker and a related main group participating in a real production. And it showed the prediction model for a working pattern and a dealing plan to prepare in a construction site by predicting a working pattern in the management side of a construction site annually.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.1-34
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• 2002

This paper investigates the effects of hours reduction on growth, investment, and consumption as well as employment. We adopt the basic framework of the indivisibility of labor developed by Hansen (1985) and Rogerson (1988) and extend it by allowing heterogeneity of workers in productive efficiency. On the basis of monthly panel data constructed from Economically Active Population Surveys and Household Income and Expenditure Surveys, we estimate the value of productive efficiency parameter of newly hired workers relative to existing workers by considering differences between the two groups in unobservable as well as observable worker characteristics. Numerical simulation of steady states demonstrates that reduction of statutory weekly hours from 44 to 40 leads to a rise in employees by 4.9 percent. However, GNP, investment, and consumption are all reduced by 2.03 percent, which is attributed to reduction in the amount of effective labor input, which in turn comes from reduction of actual average hours and productivity differences between exiting and newly hired workers.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.59-88
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• 2014

I estimate the non-market effects of implementing five-day workweek controlling for the individual-job fixed effect. I find that the implementation of five-day workweek has improved an individual's subjective health status, increased the frequency of exercises, increased the probability to get education or training other than job training, improved subjective quality of life, increased spending for leisure and cultural activities, and improved an individual's satisfaction with the job and the employer. Much of the effects are due to reduction not of working hours but of working days.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.1-19
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• 2008

This is an empirical study in Korea on the effects of the minimum wage. Based on the survey data of security workers of 132 apartment in Seoul metro area, the study finds that the introduction of minimum wage in this sector in 2007 raised wage by 10.9%, reduced employment and work hours by 3.5-4.1% and 13.5% respectively. This implies a short run wage elasticity of employment of -0.312 but much higher elasticity of work hours of -1.68.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.83-100
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• 2012

This paper estimates the impacts of introducing the 40 hour work week standard in South Korea on actual working hours, wages and employment. We exploit variation in timing of implementing the 40 hour work week standard across industries and establishment size and estimate the causal effects by a triple difference model. Our results show that the 40 hour work week standard decreased actual working hours by about 43 minutes while it increased hourly wage rate by 6.6%. The probability of new hires decreased by about 2.3% points.