In addition to its working hours reduction policies, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has been continuously expanding the scope of work-life balance policies to promote flexible work environments and boost employee morale.  As part of this campaign, the National Assembly recently amended the Equal Employment Opportunity and Work-Family Balance Assistance Act (the “Equal Opportunity Act”).  These changes will take effect starting October 1, 2019.   The key changes to the Equal Opportunity Act are as follows: 

1. Expanded Paternity Leave Benefit (Effective starting October 1, 2019)

• Pursuant to the current law, paternity leave is limited to five days (the first three days of which are paid leave),  
  but the amendment extends the leave period to 10 days (all paid leave days). 
• Further, the amendment extends the period in which paternity leave requests may be made from within 30 days of the date a male employee’s spouse gave birth to within 90 days of birth.  The amendment also enables employees to split their paternity leave into up to two separate segments. 

2. Expanded Childcare Leave/Reduced Working Hours for Period of Childcare (Effective starting October 1, 2019) 

• Pursuant to the current law, the total period of an employee’s combined use of childcare leave and/or reduced working hours for period of childcare may not exceed one year.  The amendment, however, provides that an eligible employee may take up to one year of childcare leave and then another year of reduced working hours during the period of childcare (or some combination thereof in the maximum two-year period).   
• The range of reduced working hour schedules has also been changed from 15 to 30 hours per week to 15 to 35 hours per week, providing more flexibility. 
• Moreover, the Enforcement Decree of the Equal Opportunity Act will be amended within 2019 to grant the right to childcare leave to an employee whose spouse also is on childcare leave for the same child.  

3. New Provisions on Requests for Family Care Leave and Reduced Working Hours (will be implemented in phases depending on the size of a workplace starting January 1, 2020) 

• Pursuant to the current law, any employee who applies for family care leave on grounds of a family member’s disease, accident, or senility must use at least 30 days of leave at a time.  As a result, employees’ options and opportunities for using family care leave.  However, this amendment will allow employees to take multiple one-day family care leaves (a maximum of 10 days per occasion)  and expand the scope of such leaves by adding childcare as a valid reason for leave. 
• Moreover, the government has announced that reduced working hours policies based on various grounds such as family care, an employee’s own disease/accident, retirement preparation (for those over age 55), and education will be adopted soon, in addition to the existing policies for pregnancy and childcare.  Because of this, we anticipate more working hours reduction policies to follow in the near future.   

As described above, the amendment to the Equal Opportunity Act concerns issues that are closely related to employees’ working conditions, such as leaves of absence and working hours.  Accordingly, we recommend that companies comply with the upcoming changes by amending any relevant policies prior to the effective dates of the amendment’s provisions.