Action demanded in South Korea over excessive overtime culture following producer suicide

The family of a young South Korean film producer who committed suicide after allegedly working over 20 hours a day have launched a campaign against the excessive overtime culture common to Asia’s fourth largest economy.

Relatives of Lee Han-bit, a producer at the CJ E&M entertainment company, who took his own life in October, released his suicide note last week in a bid to raise public awareness of the problem.

“I couldn’t live this way, working over 20 hours a day, sleeping only two to three hours and then going back to work,” he wrote.

In a statement, CJ E&M said “we are sad for the death of Lee and mourn with his family,” pledging to submit to a police investigation if there was one.

Activists have joined Lee’s family in starting an online petition demanding government action against work-related suicides, in a country where only about half of college graduates are able to secure full-time jobs and overwork is a chronic problem among those who do.

Over 10,000 have signed the petition so far, with Lee’s tragic story prompting an outpouring of complaints about unrealistic workplace demands, reported the Joongang daily.

One detailed how a man in his 20s was asked during an interview with an IT company what he thought about working a 25 hour shift. When he did not respond, the interview was called off and he did not get the job.

“Some job advertisements say in the details for their requirements, 'We welcome applicants who love eating dinner with co-workers at the corporate cafeteria',” wrote another 27-year-old. “That’s not funny.”

Another young employee confessed that “I used to work from 7am to 1 or 2am when I first started working..I don’t know how I was able to do that, and I still can’t understand why I had to do that.”

Koreans work on average 53 hours a week, according to a survey by employment website Job Korea last week, even though working hours are limited to 40 a week by law.

In neighbouring Japan, the culture of dangerously long hours has become so severe that a word, karoshi, was invented to describe death by overwork.

In December the head of advertising agency Dentsu, resigned after employee Matsuri Takahashi, 24, jumped to her death after clocking over 100 hours overtime a month.

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