President Lee Jae-myung has asked officials to explore whether exemptions from the 52-hour workweek for semiconductor research and development staff could be handled by revising the presidential decree of the existing system or by simplifying procedures. At the second plenary meeting of the Regulatory Rationalization Committee on the 23rd, Lee said outdated and burdensome regulations must be reformed quickly and boldly, calling for a rapid push on deregulation to foster advanced industries and encourage startups, including enactment of a mega-regional special zone law containing more than 320 regulatory exceptions. Sweeping measures were also announced, including cutting the time needed to develop national semiconductor industrial complexes to within five years by shortening permit procedures. On the chip industry's demand to write the labor exemption into law, however, Lee was lukewarm, asking whether there was any need to create a new system by law when it is being fiercely opposed.
If companies are to respond nimbly to a fast-changing industrial environment, it is important to streamline cumbersome administrative procedures such as permits and to remove outdated rules. In that sense, Lee's pledge that day to personally attend to on-site difficulties in the three mega-projects and the mega-regional special zones is welcome. But turning away from businesses' demand for legislation on a 52-hour workweek exemption amounts to tinkering at the edges of deregulation. No matter how quickly semiconductor complexes are built or how early artificial intelligence investment is brought forward, companies cannot pull ahead in the global semiconductor contest if they remain shackled by the 52-hour cap and cannot accelerate R&D. Yet the government, the ruling party and even the president are unable to confront the 52-hour rule head-on because they are watching for labor's reaction, which is frustrating.
To fuel growth by nurturing the semiconductor and AI industries, the first priority is removing the labor regulations that stand as the biggest obstacle to business activity. But the labor flexibility that companies desperately want has been irresponsibly passed on to the National Assembly. After the Democratic Party of Korea, citing the need for deliberation, introduced both a mega-regional special zone bill including the exemption and one without it, labor groups began pressuring the National Assembly, opposing the bill on the grounds that it is a rollback of labor rights. For companies to run with confidence in the government, Lee must now make a political decision. Rather than settling for makeshift patchwork aimed at appeasing labor, he should directly persuade the National Assembly and labor groups to legislate without delay a labor exemption that introduces a carve-out from the 52-hour workweek, starting with the mega-regional special zones.