How to not get cheated by bosses - Are you getting paid a proper salary?

 

The minimum wage in Korea, as of 2025, is 10,030 KRW per hour. If your contract says you get more per hour, your salary should get calculated based on the amount that is on the contract, but your wage can never be lower than the minimum wage.

 

If you work more than 8 hours per day, or more than 40 hours per week, for every hour above you should get 50% extra.

 

If you work during the night (between 10:00PM - 6:00AM), you should get 50% extra per hour.

 

If you work on a holiday, you should get 50% extra per hour. ‘Holiday’ here means: 1) Sundays, 2) The 15 national holidays (March 1st,August 15th, October 3rd, October 9th, January 1st, Lunar New Year holidays(3 days), Buddha’s birthday, May 5th, June 6th, Chuseok holidays(3 days), Christmas), 3) Election day, and 4) any substitute holidays, if the national holidays fall on a weekend.

 

If you worked a full week, according to the work hours written in your contract, you are supposed to get 8 extra hours worth of salary. Usually, the ‘full week’ work would be 8 hours each, Monday through Friday, totaling 40 hours. If you don’t have a contract, you should still get the extra 8 hours if you worked Monday through Friday, 8 hours each.

 

Also, if you don’t miss work, you may be eligible for paid leaves. If you did not take any paid leave, you can get compensation for those days.

 

This might seem complicated. But you don’t have to worry about that. I can help you calculate if you are getting paid properly by your company. However,there are some things that you need to do on your side, if I am to be able to help you.

 

1. Collect all documents that can prove how many hours you worked. If they give you payment slips, do not throw them away or lose them. If they give you payment slips through email or phone, download the data and don’t lose the data. If you have time cards, take pictures of them, and again,don’t lose the pictures.

 

2. If they do not provide any payment slips or other documents that you can use to prove your work hours, you should write them down in a notebook every day. For every day you work, record the date, the time you started work that day, and the time you stopped. Actually, this is a wise thing to do for anyone.

 

3. Do not delete any messages with the boss or your coworkers. DO NOT LOSE THE DATA IN YOUR PHONE. I can’t stress this enough. I have seen too many people who changed their phone, and didn’t bother to save their old data, including all the payment slips. Sure you’re happy you sold your old phone and got pocket money. Guess what? You may have lost the means to claim all your unpaid wages.

 

4. If you read so far, you’ll have found a pattern, but I’ll say it again because it’s just that important. PLEASE DO NOT LOSE THE DATA IN YOUR PHONE. If you change your phone,  transfer the data to your new phone, or just hold on to your old phone. Even better, you might consider backing up your important data in things like Google Drive,so even if your phone gets broken, you can access the data (and don’t forget your password to access that data. This happens more often than you think).

 

As always, contact me if you think you are not getting paid properly.