Two numbers govern working time in Korea, and almost every dispute a foreign employee brings turns on one of them. The first is fifty-two — the ceiling on a working week. The second is five, the number of employees below which much of that protection simply does not apply.
What follows is what the statute gives, what it withholds, and the contract clause that quietly removes the difference.
→The Week, and Its Ceiling
Statutory working hours under the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법) are eight in a day and forty in a week, exclusive of breaks. Beyond that, extension is possible only by agreement between the parties, and only up to twelve further hours in a week.
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Statutory hours | 8 per day, 40 per week |
| Extended work (연장근로) | Up to 12 hours per week, by agreement — a 52-hour ceiling |
| Overtime premium | 50% above ordinary wage |
| Night work (야간근로), 22:00–06:00 | 50% above ordinary wage, in addition to any overtime premium |
| Holiday work (휴일근로) | 50% for the first 8 hours; 100% beyond 8 hours |
| Breaks | 30 minutes per 4 hours worked; 1 hour per 8 hours |
The premiums stack. Overtime worked after ten at night attracts both the overtime and the night premium, which is why late shifts are expensive to the employer and why unpaid late shifts are the most valuable claim an employee tends to have.
→The Number Five
A workplace that ordinarily employs fewer than five workers falls outside a substantial part of the Labor Standards Act. This is the single most consequential fact about a Korean employment relationship, and it appears in no job advertisement.
- Does not apply below five. Overtime, night and holiday premiums. Statutory annual leave. The restriction on dismissal without just cause — meaning no unfair dismissal remedy before the Labor Relations Commission
- Applies regardless of size. The minimum wage. Payment of wages in full and on time. Severance pay (퇴직금) after a year. Workers' compensation insurance. Maternity leave
The count is of workers ordinarily employed, not of full-time staff on the payroll, and part-time and fixed-term workers are counted. Employers do miscount, sometimes deliberately. If the number is near the line, it is worth establishing properly before anything else, because it determines which claims exist at all.
Below five employees, a hagwon can require a sixty-hour week and owe nothing extra for the twenty. The ceiling on hours is not the same thing as a right to be paid for exceeding it.
→Annual Leave (연차)
Paid annual leave accrues by statute, not by the employer's policy, and it does not depend on the employer granting it.
- First year. One day of paid leave for each month worked in full — up to eleven days across the year
- After one year of continuous service, with attendance of at least 80% of that year — fifteen days
- Long service. From three years of continuous service, one additional day for every further two years, to a ceiling of twenty-five
Leave is taken on the days the employee chooses; the employer may change the timing only where the requested days would seriously impede the business. Refusing leave outright is not among the options.
Unused leave converts to money (연차수당). On termination, accrued and untaken leave is payable in cash, and this is regularly missed by departing foreign employees — often alongside the final month's wages and severance. There is one route by which the entitlement can lapse: a statutory procedure requiring the employer to notify the employee in writing of remaining leave and urge them to take it. Absent that procedure, correctly followed, the money remains owed.
→The Clause That Erases the Difference
Korean contracts frequently contain a comprehensive wage clause (포괄임금제) — a single figure stated to include overtime, night, and holiday premiums, without itemisation.
Such a clause is not automatically valid. Where the actual hours worked can be measured, courts have been unwilling to let a lump sum displace the statutory calculation, and a comprehensive wage that falls short of what the premiums would have produced is invalid to the extent of the shortfall. The employer owes the difference.
What defeats these claims is not the clause. It is the absence of records. An employee who can show when they arrived and left can compute the shortfall; one who cannot is arguing from memory against a payroll system.
- Keep the signed contract and any wage table attached to it
- Keep monthly payslips, which must itemise the components of pay
- Record your own hours contemporaneously — building access logs, work chat timestamps, shift rosters, photographs of a schedule board
→Making the Claim
Unpaid premiums and unpaid leave allowance are wage claims, and they follow the ordinary route: a complaint to the regional office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (고용노동부), where a labour inspector investigates and calls both sides in. There is no filing fee, and interpretation support is generally available.
Wage claims are subject to a three-year limitation period, running on each payment as it fell due. An employee who waits until they leave a job after five years has lost the first two years, permanently.
Two points specific to foreign nationals are worth stating plainly. Bringing a complaint against your employer is not a ground for losing your status, and the labour authorities do not require the employer's consent to investigate. And where a sponsored visa ties you to that employer, the sequence in which you resign, file, and apply to change workplace determines whether you keep your right to remain — which is a question to settle before filing, not after.