South Korea’s capital is launching a new initiative to stop government employees from working too much.
Over the next three months, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will start shutting off government computers on Friday night, according to the BBC.
Beginning March 30, government computers will shut off at 8 p.m. on Fridays. On two Fridays in April, computers will shut off at 7:30 p.m. In May, computers will shut off at 7:00 p.m. every Friday. The government may consider exemptions in special circumstances.
Sixty-seven percent of workers have already requested exemptions, according to a statement from the SMG.
Government employees in South Korea work about 2,739 hours a year, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. In the US, government employees work an average 1,834 hours a year. The average is about 1,736 hours a year in other developed countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
South Korea’s family minister Chung Hyun recently blamed the country’s low birth rate on the culture of always working overtime. In early March, the government passed a law that slashed the maximum weekly work hours from the “inhumanely long” 68 hours to 52 hours.


