Korea's labor productivity up in 2018 on shortened work hours

SEOUL, May 7 (Yonhap) -- Productivity in South Korea's industrial sectors improved 3.6 percent last year from a year earlier largely due to the adoption of a shortened workweek, a state agency said Tuesday. The productivity index stood at 108.3 last year, compared with the previous year's 104.5, according to the Korea Productivity Center (KPC). Last year's productivity growth was also a bit higher than the previous year's 3.3 percent gain. South Korea introduced the shortened 52-hour workweek, initially for companies that hire 300 employees or more, in July last year. The center said labor input sharply decreased in major industrial sectors and that added value in some industries increased. To spur growth, the government needs to further ease regulations and local companies need to invest in ICT projects in the short term and in the services industry in the long term, the KPC said. The KPC places the labor productivity measured for the year of 2015 as the index's benchmark of 100. (END)