Korea’s shortened-workweek movement has gained concrete institutional momentum in 2026, with 191 companies now operating some version of a 4.5-day workweek — a structure typically involving a shortened Friday rather than a full day off — as the government’s “워라밸+4.5 프로젝트” (Work-Life Balance +4.5 Project) subsidy program helps drive adoption among small and mid-sized businesses.
Under the subsidy structure, small and medium enterprises that implement a 4.5-day workweek receive government incentive payments of 200,000 to 250,000 won per employee per month, with an additional 600,000 to 800,000 won per newly hired employee if the shortened schedule creates hiring capacity — part of a 27.6 billion won budget allocation the Ministry of Employment and Labor has committed to the initiative, covering labor-cost support, organizational-culture consulting, and workflow-process diagnostics for participating companies.
Adoption has spread beyond smaller companies into some of Korea’s more prominent employers: Kakao, MBC, and Millie’s Library (밀리의서재) have all implemented 4.5-day arrangements, while major banks have taken a more incremental approach — IBK Industrial Bank began shortening Wednesday and Friday hours by one hour starting in January, and KB Kookmin Bank started a similar one-hour Friday reduction in March.
The policy sits within a broader government objective to reduce Korea’s notoriously long average annual working hours toward the OECD average of roughly 1,700 hours by 2030 — a target that would represent a substantial cultural and structural shift for an economy long associated with some of the longest average working hours among developed nations.
While full 4-day workweeks (with a complete day off rather than simply shortened hours) remain rare and largely experimental in Korea, the more incremental 4.5-day model’s growing adoption — spanning both major employers and subsidized smaller businesses — suggests Korean workplace culture is moving toward reduced-hours arrangements more gradually than a single dramatic policy shift, through a mix of voluntary corporate adoption and targeted government incentives.
Source: Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor “워라밸+4.5 프로젝트” program details; corporate 4.5-day workweek adoption coverage, 2026.
