South Korea to pay civil servants for all overtime hours
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Starting next month, the South Korean government will compensate civil servants for all hours worked beyond their regular schedule, removing a previous limit of four hours per day.
Previously, even if public employees worked more than four hours of overtime in a day, they only received pay for those first four hours. The Personnel Innovation Office announced the change to regulations on civil servant allowances after recognizing that the prior system did not reflect periods of concentrated work.
The government will maintain a monthly overtime limit of 57 hours to ensure employees have adequate rest. It also eliminated previous exceptions allowing up to eight hours of overtime per day and 100 hours per month for urgent matters, now extending pay to all hours worked, even beyond those limits. To speed up approvals, authority to grant exceptions has moved from ministers to bureau and department heads.
The Personnel Innovation Office will also introduce a “supplementary overtime allowance” for 4th-grade civil servants performing practical work without managerial positions. These employees, previously excluded from overtime pay due to receiving management allowances, will now receive compensation for overtime exceeding 25 hours per month.
The government will also change how it verifies work hours, shifting from relying on arrival and departure times to requiring employees to record their work status at regular intervals using an electronic personnel management system, with confirmation by department heads. To prevent abuse, the government strengthened disciplinary measures, now requiring a reprimand for any single instance of improperly receiving 500,000 won (approximately $375 USD) or more in overtime pay.
