Eight out of ten Korean workers support a 4.5-day workweek, with more than half of those with experience saying it would increase productivity. Blind surveyed 16,920 Korean workers.

Blind announced on the 17th that 78% of workers support the introduction of a 4.5-day workweek. Fifty-two percent of workers who experienced the 4.5-day workweek reported increased productivity compared to before the system was introduced.

The number of workers who responded that they were in favor of the introduction of the 4.5-day workweek (78%) was more than five times higher than the number of workers who responded that they were against it (14%).

The longer a respondent's career and the smaller their company, the higher their approval rating. The highest approval ratings were given to those with 14 or more years of experience (81%), 9 to 14 years (80%), 5 to 9 years (78%), 1 to 5 years (76%), and less than 1 year (72%). By company size, approval ratings were higher for those working at companies with fewer than 300 employees (86%) than for those with 10,000 or more employees (77%).

Meanwhile, the shorter the current working hours, the higher the approval rating. The group working 52 hours or less per week had the highest approval rating, exceeding 80%, followed by the group working between 52 and 70 hours at 75%, and the group working over 70 hours at 71%.

Among the 5,398 survey participants who had experienced the 4.5-day workweek, we asked them how their productivity had changed compared to before the system was introduced. Over half responded that their productivity had increased (52%). This was followed by those who said there had been no change (37%) and that their productivity had decreased (11%).

When asked about factors that lower productivity at work, respondents ranked "organizational culture issues" (23%) and "inefficient procedures" (23%) as the top factors, while "insufficient working hours" (5%) ranked the lowest. Other factors cited as lower productivity included "excessive communication" (16%), "confused priorities" (15%), "burnout" (11%), and "poor work environment" (7%).

An employee at Hanlim Pharmaceutical said, "Germany and Norway work 30 to 34 hours a week, but their productivity is higher than ours. The labor method of grinding people out is

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Blind is a workplace social platform launched in Korea in 2013 with the vision of fostering a healthy organizational culture driven by the voices of its employees. In Korea, 86% of employees at companies with 300 or more employees use Blind, and in the US, over 80% of employees at major tech companies like Meta and Uber use it. In February of this year, the company launched in India, marking the beginning of its global expansion.