Anchor: The government will keep the 52-hour workweek after its plan to increase the maximum weekly work hours faced backlash. However, it will still seek flexibility for some industries and jobs. 
Max Lee has this story. 

Report: The government is scrapping its plan to reform the working hour system and maintain the current 52-hour workweek while implementing revisions for some industries and occupations.

The announcement came in a briefing on Monday afternoon by the Ministry of Employment and Labor to release the results of a public survey on working hours conducted over a three-month period starting in June, as well as its future policy directions.

According to labor minister Lee Jung-sik, the government will fully accept the results of the survey and maintain the 52-hour workweek, but come up with reform measures for some industries and occupations.

The survey was conducted through door-to-door interviews with a total of six-thousand-30 people, including three-thousand-839 workers, 976 business owners and one-thousand-215 citizens.

The results found that 48-point-two percent of the public responded that the 52-hour system was “helpful in resolving long working hours,” while 85-point-five percent of business owners said they “never experienced any difficulties with the current system.”

The survey was conducted in response to backlash over the government’s plan to implement a maximum 69-hour workweek policy by calculating overtime monthly, quarterly, biannually or annually instead of weekly.

However, the ratio of people who agreed with expanding the overtime cap was ten percentage points higher than those who disapproved in all three groups.

Respondents considered manufacturing and construction as industries that needed to be more flexible with overtime, while such occupations included jobs in production, health and research.

The ministry intends to devise a detailed plan through a labor-business-government dialogue based on the survey results, but labor groups are already protesting the move, with the Federation of Korean Trade Unions saying that the survey mocked the public by hiding the fact that a flexible workweek can be abused to impose long hours. 
Max Lee, KBS World Radio News.