Weekly Holiday Pay in Korea: How Much Part-Timers Actually Get in 2026

My friend Minji worked her first café shift last month — 25 hours a week, ₩10,030 an hour. She expected ₩250,750 in her first weekly paycheck. What showed up was ₩300,900. She thought the owner made a mistake and almost messaged him to give it back. Turns out the extra ₩50,150 was 주휴수당, weekly holiday pay, and it's the law.

If you work part-time in Korea and clock at least 15 hours a week, you're entitled to one paid day off per week — even though you're not actually working that day. Most part-timers have no idea this exists, and a lot of employers quietly pretend it doesn't. That's how ₩200,000 to ₩400,000 a month walks out the door.

What Weekly Holiday Pay Actually Is

Weekly holiday pay, or 주휴수당, comes from Article 55 of the Korean Labor Standards Act. The idea is simple: if you show up for all your scheduled shifts in a given week, your employer owes you one extra day of pay on top of the hours you actually worked. It's a paid rest day built into the law.

This isn't some bonus or gift. It's wage, full stop. Skipping it is the same as not paying you for hours you worked. The Ministry of Employment and Labor treats unpaid weekly holiday pay as a wage violation, and you can file a complaint exactly the way you'd file one for any missing paycheck.

Who Qualifies (and Who Doesn't)

Three conditions have to line up. First, your contracted weekly hours need to be 15 or more. Second, you have to show up for every shift you were scheduled to work that week — no absences. Third, you need to still be employed into the next week. That last one trips a lot of people up.

The 15-hour rule is strict. Work 14 hours a week and you get nothing. Work 15 and you're entitled to the full benefit. Some employers will deliberately schedule you at 14.5 hours to avoid it, which is technically legal but also a pretty clear signal about the kind of workplace you've walked into.

One thing worth clearing up: it doesn't matter whether you're an alba, a contractor, a part-timer, or a full-time employee. If you hit 15 hours a week and show up reliably, the law applies to you. A student working weekends at a convenience store qualifies just as much as a factory worker.

How to Calculate It

The formula is straightforward once you see it. Take your weekly hours, divide by 40 (a standard work week), multiply by 8 (a standard work day), then multiply by your hourly wage. That gives you the weekly holiday pay on top of your regular earnings.

If you work a full 40 hours, the math simplifies: 40 ÷ 40 × 8 × ₩10,030 = ₩80,240 per week. If you work less than 40 but more than 15, the amount scales down proportionally. Here's a comparison you can eyeball.

Notice that the holiday pay is always 20% of your regular weekly wage? That's because 8 hours divided by 40 hours equals 0.2. An easier shortcut: whatever you earned in regular pay that week, add 20% and you've got your real total.

Walkthrough: A 25-Hour Café Shift

Let's run through Minji's situation step by step so you can see exactly where every won comes from.

Without weekly holiday pay, Minji would earn about ₩1,088,255 a month. With it, she clears over ₩1.3 million. That ₩217,651 difference is the whole point of knowing this rule exists.

When You Don't Get Paid

Miss a single scheduled shift during the week and you lose the holiday pay for that week. Call in sick without documentation, skip because of a hangover, show up late and get sent home — any of those can disqualify you. Legitimate sick leave with a doctor's note is usually fine, but policies vary by workplace.

The 'employed into next week' condition catches a lot of people when they quit. If your last day is a Friday and the week ends Sunday, you technically aren't continuing employment, so that final week's holiday pay can disappear. Timing your resignation to land mid-week instead of end-of-week can protect it.

What to Do If They Won't Pay

Start with the paper trail. Pull up your schedule, your time records, and your bank transfers. Anything that shows you worked 15+ hours and actually showed up for every shift is evidence. Screenshots of KakaoTalk messages from your manager count too.

Then talk to your employer directly — a lot of small business owners genuinely don't know the rule and will correct it once you explain. If that doesn't work, file a wage complaint at your local labor office (고용노동부 민원센터). You can do it online through the Ministry of Employment and Labor website. The complaint is free, and employers face fines plus back-pay orders if they're found in violation.

There's a three-year statute of limitations on unpaid wages, so if you only figured this out months after leaving a job, you can still go back and claim what you were owed. Plenty of people have successfully recovered six months or more of missed holiday pay this way.