One of our employees wants to have her working hours reduced for a childcare period. What is this? Is it possible for the employee to have her working hours reduced even though she already used childcare leave for a year? Do we have to grant it even though it’s difficult to find someone to work as her substitute?

With recent revision of the “Act on Equal Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation”, workers who have to take care of a child aged 8 or under and attending elementary school (up to and including grade 2) may have their working hours reduced to at least 35 hours a week and as low as 15 hours a week.
However, the revision applies only to employees requesting childcare leave for the first time (including those requesting that their working hours be reduced for a childcare period) or those who have already used a portion of their childcare leave, and have an unused period remaining.
Employees can have their working hours reduced for childcare for one year per child. If an employee has used six months of childcare leave, s/he can have their working hours reduced during the unused childcare leave months. Therefore, if your employee has already used one year of childcare leave, she is eligible to have her working hours reduced for childcare for an additional one year.
In other words, an employee can have their working hours reduced up to 2 years, in accordance with the following table (childcare leave can be a maximum of 1 year):

Childcare leave: 12 months
Reduced working hours for childcare:
12 months
Childcare leave: 6 months
Reduced working hours for childcare:
18 months
Reduced working hours for childcare: 2 years



Working hours can be reduced at separate times, with a minimum 3 consecutive months each time.
But, if any of the cases below apply to your employee, she is not entitled to having her working hours reduced.
1. Where the applicant worker has worked in the relevant business for less than one year by the day before the scheduled start date of reduced working hours;
2. Where the applicant worker’s spouse is on childcare leave (including childcare leave under other Acts and subordinate statutes) to care for the same infant (This clause will be deleted from 28 February 2020);
3. Where the employer has made efforts to find a replacement worker for 14 days or more after listing a job opening with an employment security office under subparagraph 1 of Article 2-2 of the Employment Security Act (hereinafter referred to as the “employment security office”), but failed to hire a replacement worker: Provided that applicants shall be eligible for reduced working hours if their employer has refused to hire a worker two or more times without justifiable reason despite job referrals by the head of an employment security office;
4. Where, given the nature of the job of a worker who has applied for reduced working hours for a childcare period, it is difficult to split his/her working hours, and other cases where working hour reduction for a childcare period causes serious disruption to normal business operations and the employer has sufficient evidence of this.