Recently, South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor released a survey conducted on 620 businesses, which also showed that only about 11.3 percent of businesses are looking to end the remote working scheme once the pandemic settles and the world begins adapting fully to the new normal.
According to the survey, 53.6 percent of companies that still have plans to maintain their current remote working schemes after the pandemic stated that they saw no real increase in productivity compared to when the office workplace was at full capacity. Up to 20.5 percent of these companies also stated that there was a strong intention and push by management to continue with these arrangements.
The ministry also stated that up to two-thirds of of employees at such companies expressed interest and desire to continue on with remote working arrangements even after the pandemic. Those who preferred the remote-work system consist of mostly working parents with young children. The reason for this was cited to be an overall improvement in work-life balance as working parents are able to spend more time together with their families.
Like many other nations, the advent of the pandemic has brought with it many fundamental changes to South Korea and its way of working. During the pandemic, many companies gradually introduced various forms of flexible work programmes, such as working from home, remote work, and hybrid work models. Many of these programmes were either absent of did feature prominently among most South Korean companies before the pandemic.
The government further encouraged employers to allow their employees to work from home, in part through financial subsidies and incentives.
Just recently, the number of South Korean employees working under flexible work conditions was just under a million. This number has been gradually increasing over the years, but reached it’s peak during the pandemic, quadrupling the number of flexible workers in August 2021 compare to 2015, according to Statista.
