Crunch mode refers to the time when workers focus on nothing but work without taking rest or sleeping. (image: Flickr/ melburnian)
SEOUL, Dec. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — More than half of the information technology (IT) workers in the Gyeonggi Province’s city of Seongnam, especially Pangyo district, the Korean version of Silicon Valley, turned out to have experienced highly intense labor.
The city government conducted a survey of 1,627 wage workers and freelancers in IT within the city.
Among the respondents, 51 percent admitted that they had experienced a so-called “crunch mode”, with its period estimated at 34 days a year on average.
Crunch mode refers to the time when workers focus on nothing but work without taking rest or sleeping. In the gaming industry, crunch mode usually occurs before new games are released.
Another 19.7 percent of the respondents noted that they did not receive the notice about crunch mode in advance, and 30.8 percent said that they had to return to work even after leaving work or during holidays.
Roughly one third of the respondents insisted that their companies pressed them to work more, and 32.6 percent said that they were pushed to speed up work by their employer.
When it comes to freelancers, the share of those who had unfair experiences during the process of doing work was relatively high.
‘Damage from use of agencies’ (64 percent) came on top, followed by ‘arbitrary change of contract terms’ (44 percent) and ‘tasks not included in the contract’ (41.3 percent).
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
