Labor, business and government representatives have agreed on a landmark plan to reduce Korea’s annual working hours to about the OECD average by 2030, casting shorter hours as a national strategy for sustainable growth and tackling the low birthrate. At a public briefing held Tuesday on the “Road Map Task Force for Reducing Actual Working Hours,” representatives announced a joint declaration and policy blueprint committing all three sides to bringing the country’s average annual working hours down to about 1,700 hours, roughly in line with the average for members of the OECD, a group of mostly advanced economies. This marks the first time the three sides have formally defined reducing working time as a joint mission, presenting it as a necessary step toward achieving “work-life balance.” Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon and senior representatives of labor and business all pledged to shift the country away from its long-hours work culture toward “qualitative labor,” where efficiency and fair rewards replace reliance on overtime. “Labor, management and government share the