[비즈한국] As the Lee Jae-myung administration selects the introduction of a '4.5-day workweek' as a national agenda item to reduce working hours, attention is turning to whether flexible working arrangements will be expanded. This is because, given that there are industries where a 4.5-day workweek is difficult to implement, there is an expectation that flexible work systems tailored to the realities of different sectors, job types, and company sizes will spread. However, as the number of employees using flexible working systems has been decreasing year by year, experts point out that it is urgent to prepare countermeasures for this in line with the 4.5-day workweek.
According to the 'Lee Jae-myung Administration's 5-Year National Management Plan (Draft)' announced on the 21st, the 4.5-day workweek was included in the 123 national agenda items. The government plans to start with pilot programs in central and local governments and eventually apply them to private companies through revisions to the Labor Standards Act. Accordingly, it is expected that flexible working systems will be expanded in industries where a blanket application of the 4.5-day workweek is difficult.
However, the number of employees using flexible working systems has been falling year after year in recent times. According to Statistics Korea, the proportion of all wage earners using flexible working systems increased from 14.2% in 2020 to 16.8% in 2021. This was because companies actively encouraged employees to work from home and remotely as social distancing was implemented due to COVID-19.
However, the proportion of employees utilizing flexible work began to trend downward to 16.0% in 2022 as the pandemic subsided, and dropped to 15.6% in 2023. It then fell further, recording 15.0% in 2024. The problem is that while the number of employees who want flexible working systems is increasing, the number of employees who actually use them is decreasing.
In 2020, the proportion of employees who wanted flexible work was 40.9% among all wage earners, a gap of 26.7 percentage points from the actual utilization rate (14.2%). In 2021, the proportion of those wishing for flexible work was 42.8%, narrowing the gap with the utilization rate (16.8%) to 24.2 percentage points. However, as the number of employees hoping for flexible work surged to 45.2% in 2022, the gap with the utilization rate (16.0%) began to widen to 29.2 percentage points. By 2023, as the proportion of those hoping for flexible work rose to 47.0%, the gap hit 31.4 percentage points, exceeding the 30 percentage point mark.
In 2024, the proportion of employees wishing for flexible work increased to 48.1%, with the gap widening to 33.1 percentage points. As the number of employees desiring flexible work grows year by year while companies are restricting it, the effectiveness of flexible working systems is diminishing.
Furthermore, there was a significant discrepancy between employees' preferences and the methods companies use to allow flexible work. The method most desired by employees hoping for flexible work was the selective working hours system. This system allows employees to adjust or choose their own working hours outside of the core hours mandated by the company.
Among those hoping for flexible work, the proportion of employees wanting the selective working hours system ranked first in every survey: 37.1% in 2020, 34.1% in 2021, 33.6% in 2022, 34.1% in 2023, and 34.0% in 2024. Conversely, the least preferred system among those hoping for flexible work was the work-from-home/remote work system. The preference for this stood at 12.5% in 2020, 15.9% in 2021, 16.7% in 2022, 16.2% in 2023, and 15.5% in 2024, remaining the lowest every year. The next lowest preference was for the flexible commuting system, which recorded 21.4% in 2020, 21.3% in 2021, 20.7% in 2022, 19.7% in 2023, and 20.4% in 2024.
However, the systems most actually used were the flexible commuting system and the work-from-home/remote work system. In 2020, 31.2% of employees using flexible work—the highest percentage—used the flexible commuting system, while in 2021, due to the COVID-19 aftermath, the work-from-home/remote work system was most common at 32.3%. In 2022, the proportion of employees using the flexible commuting system returned to the top spot at 31.7%, increasing further to 33.0% in 2023 and 35.0% in 2024.
Such large discrepancies between desire and utilization, and between preferred and implemented systems, exist because many companies either do not have flexible working systems at all, or those that do have not implemented the selective working hours system that employees prefer. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, as of 2023, 74.5% of companies had not introduced any flexible working system. Even among companies that had introduced flexible work, only 10.0% had implemented the selective working hours system most desired by employees.