March 23 (UPI) -- South Korea is rolling out a new initiative to force government employees to work fewer hours -- shutting down office computers at 8 p.m. each Friday.
The so-called "shutdown initiative" is expected to go into effect March 30 and will involve three phases.
At the end of March, all government computers will be shut down at 8 p.m. In April, the second phase will involve shutting down computers at 7:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Friday of the month. In May, the third phase involves shutting down all computers by 7 p.m. every Friday.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government implemented the new strategy after the national assembly passed a law cutting down the maximum work week in the country from 68 hours to 52 hours.
South Korea is one of the most overworked countries in the world. Government employees work on average more than 1,000 hours each per year than workers in other developed countries.
