management-article

The Illusion That 'Those Who Stay Late Work Best': Shorter Hours Improve Productivity, Hiring, and Retention

Longest yet least productive—Korea remains high in annual working hours at approximately 1,865 hours in 2024 (7th in the OECD), yet ranks 31st in hourly productivity, remaining in the 30s for seven consecutive years and demonstrating that working hours and performance are not proportional. The economics of overtime—according to Stanford researcher John Pencavel, productivity plummets after 48–49 hours per week, and the total output of a 70-hour workweek is virtually identical to that of a 56-hour workweek. Overtime is not free; its costs simply do not appear immediately on the income statement. Korea’s first empirical evidence—released in March 2026, a one-year pilot of Gyeonggi Province’s 4.5-day workweek across 107 institutions and 3,050 individuals showed that despite a 4.7-hour reduction in weekly hours, productivity per worker rose by 2.1% and turnover dropped from 22.8% to 17.4%. The measurement trap—overtime culture survives because performance is hard to measure while time is easy to measure. Comprehensive wage systems dull the sense of overtime costs, and chronic overtime is a sign of management design failure rather than an indicator of dedication. Redesign, not just reduction—cutting time without improving work processes leads to the side effect of 'compressed labor.' The real question managers must ask is not 'How long do they work?' but 'How much value does that time create?'