Samsung Makes 6 Day Workweeks Mandatory for Executives as the Company Enters 'Emergency Mode'

Four-day workweeks mightiness person all nan buzz, but 1 awesome tech institution is going successful nan other direction.

Samsung is implementing a six-day workweek for each executives aft immoderate of nan firm's halfway businesses delivered lower-than-expected financial results past year.

A Samsung Group executive told a Korean news outlet that "considering that capacity of our awesome units, including Samsung Electronics Co., fell short of expectations successful 2023, we are introducing nan six-day activity week for executives to inject a consciousness of situation and make all-out efforts to flooded this crisis."

Lower capacity mixed pinch different economical uncertainties for illustration precocious borrowing costs person pushed nan South Korean institution to participate "emergency mode," per The Korea Economic Daily.

Related: Apple Is No Longer nan Top Phonemaker successful nan World arsenic AI Pressure and Competition Intensifies

Executives astatine each Samsung Group divisions will beryllium affected, including those successful income and manufacturing, according to nan report.

Samsung had its worst financial twelvemonth successful complete a decade successful 2023, pinch nan Wall Street Journal reporting that nett profit fell 73% successful Q4. It besides lost its apical spot connected nan world smartphone marketplace to Apple successful nan aforesaid quarter, though it reclaimed it this year.

Though labor beneath nan executive level aren't yet mandated to timepiece successful connected weekends, immoderate mightiness travel nan unwritten illustration of their bosses. After all, The Korea Economic Daily reports that executives crossed immoderate Samsung divisions person been voluntarily moving six days a week since January, earlier nan institution decided to instrumentality nan six-day workweek policy.

Entrepreneur has reached retired to Samsung's U.S. newsroom to inquire if this news includes executives situated globally, including successful nan U.S., aliases if it only affects labor successful Korea. Samsung did not instantly respond.

Research connected nan narration betwixt hours worked and output shows that moving much does not needfully summation productivity.

A Stanford project, for example, found that overwork leads to decreased full output. Average productivity decreases owed to stress, slumber deprivation, and different factors "to nan grade that nan further hours [worked] supply nary use (and, successful fact, are detrimental)," nan study said.

Related: Samsung's Newest Galaxy Gadget Aims 'To See How Productive You Can Be'

Longer hours tin besides mean semipermanent wellness effects. The World Health Organization found that moving much than 55 hours a week decreases life expectancy and increases nan consequence of changeable by 35%.

The aforesaid 55-hour workweek leads to a 17% higher consequence of bosom disease, per nan aforesaid study.