韩国缩短法定工作时间穷人却活得更辛苦_公共英语阅读理解

韩国缩短法定工作时间穷人却活得更辛苦

韩国人素来有“加班文化”，为了提高生育率和生产效率，韩国上月初颁布新法案，将法定最长工作时间从68小时缩短至52小时。结果，公务员们倒是开心和轻松了，体力劳动者和临时工们却叫苦连天。这是为什么呢？我们来看英国《卫报》的报道。

Kim Jeong-cheol wakes up every morning at 6 am to deliver packages to Seoul’s wealthier residents, and spends every night ferrying those same people home after a night out, ending his working day well past midnight. He also works at a cosmetics distribution company he runs from his home with his wife.

金正哲每天早上6点起床给首尔市内更富有的居民送包裹，每天夜里还要开车送晚上外出的这些人回家，等到收工时已经过了午夜了。他还和妻子在家合开了一家化妆品分销公司。

韩国缩短法定工作时间穷人却活得更辛苦1

Kim is one of many in South Korea’s capital to have taken on extra jobs as part of the unintended consequence of a law aimed at capping working hours and giving people more free time.

金正哲不过是首尔干副业的众多市民之一。此前韩国的新法案缩短了法定工作时间，本意是让人们拥有更多自由时间，却出现了这种意想不到的结果。

On 1 July South Korea cut the maximum weekly work hours to 52, down from 68. But the new regulation intended to combat long hours in Seoul’s steel and glass office towers has backfired for many doing manual or irregular labour, with people flocking to poorly regulated industries and facing pay cuts.