Korea's night-work bill sets a 120-hour monthly ceiling for every workplace

Ten hours a night, twelve nights a month, is 120 hours of night work. Forty-eight hours a week across an average 4.33-week month is about 208. The monthly count therefore sets the working ceiling, roughly 42% below the weekly one ^[1]. The 48-hour line only binds inside one crowded week, where five nights at ten hours comes to 50 ^[2].

The route matters more than any single number. The two Living Logistics Act revisions apply to logistics operators ^[3][4]. Rep. Park's vehicle is the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and it reaches night workers and workers in special employment types at all workplaces, parcel delivery included ^[2].

Driver sentiment runs against the caps. The National Assembly Research Service reported in December that 45.5% of late-night delivery drivers chose night delivery because of "higher income than daytime work" ^[7]. The larger poll of drivers on the record was run by an association of Coupang's own delivery partners, so it asked a population with income at stake. On its numbers about 2,237 drivers were opposed ^[5]. The bill's 48 hours sits exactly between the two union federations' figures ^[4].

On costs, the Seoul Economic Daily column argues that delivery fees will rise, that Rep. Yeom's full coverage of social insurance premiums adds cost on top, and that those costs can only come back as prices ^[11]. The column stops short of a figure for the increase ^[6]. The dialogue body convened on the issue seated the government, the ruling party, parcel delivery companies, unions, delivery branch operators and some civic groups. According to the column, its centre of gravity rested on the tripartite labour-management-government structure ^[12].

I would expect the safety act clause to reprice more overnight labour than the two logistics bills combined. Dawn delivery's 20 million users ^[6] sit next to every hospital night ward and three-shift factory under the same 10-48-12 ceiling ^[2]. The counter-case is straightforward and may well be the sponsors' own. If 200 hours of night work a month is injurious, then cutting the maximum by about 42% is the point of the bill ^[1], and higher prices are the transfer working as designed. Two developments would change my mind: a committee narrowing the safety act revision to logistics workplaces, and a premium-pay rate high enough that twelve nights pays what twenty did. That rate would answer the income motive the research service found ^[7].