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Labor Standards Act — Article 59 (Special Cases concerning Work Hours and Recess Hours)

근로기준법 제59조

This English translation is based on the Korean text effective 2025-10-23. The Korean law has since been amended (current version effective 2026-10-02) — check the Korean original.

(1) Where an employer has made a written agreement with the representative of employees with regard to any of the following business among the divisions or groups listed in the industrial standards publicly notified by the Commissioner of the Statistics Korea pursuant to Article 22 (1) of the Statistics Act, he or she may have employees work extended hours in excess of 12 hours per week under Article 53 (1) or change the recess hours under Article 54:

1. Land transportation and pipeline transportation services: Provided, That the route passenger transport business under Article 3 (1) 1 of the Passenger Transport Service Act shall be excluded;

2. Water-borne transportation services;

3. Air-borne transportation services;

4. Other transportation-related services;

5. Health care services.

(2) In the case of paragraph (1), an employer shall give employees at least 11 hours of an uninterrupted recess starting from the end of a working day until the beginning of the next working day.[This Article Wholly Amended on Mar. 20, 2018]

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