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The five-day workweek is emerging lately as a hot topic in business circles, in the wake of President Kim Dae-jung's favorable reaction to shorter labor hours for local workers. In an apparent bid to stave off a nationwide strike, President Kim said Tuesday that the government is willing to positively review the labor's demands for the introduction of a five-day workweek here.

But employer associations immediately raised strong objection, insisting the five-day workweek is premature for Korea and, if introduced, would sharply weaken corporate competitiveness.

Currently adopted by all OECD countries except for Korea, the five-day workweek is praised for improving workers' quality of life and accelerating development of the leisure industry. In contrast, conglomerate managers fear the shorter workweek will drastically push up personnel expenses and production costs.

The labor's demands for a five-day workweek through cuts in the legal working hours from the present 44 hours to 40 hours has lately been the center of the intensifying labor-management dispute. The militant Korea Confederation of Trade Unions yesterday carried out a general strike at its affiliated workplaces nationwide, dismissing President Kim's positive responses as "insufficient."

Proponents say that allowing laborers to stay away from work on both Saturdays and Sundays without pay cuts will contribute to public health and welfare. They also point out that shorter working hours are certain to upgrade productivity, while predicting that increased holidays will result in greater development of the leisure industry.

"Sufficient leisure hours and a stable home environment will enable workers to better concentrate on their work duties," said a KCTU official. "Thus the five-day workweek will have enormous pervasive effects, upgrading the nation's overall lifestyle patterns to the level of advanced countries."

But management is staunchly opposed to cutting back on hours, citing heavier wage-payment costs and loss of competitiveness. The Korea Employers Federation said that a four-hour reduction in weekly working hours will result in a 14.3-percent rise in wage payments. In addition, the five-day workweek will increase the number of annual holidays by an additional 26 days and cut corporate production by about 9 percent, the KEF insisted.

"Most countries enforcing the five-day workweek have a per-capita annual gross national product in excess of $20,000. Considering Korea's per-capita income of $8,500, the shorter work hours are premature," said a KEF executive.

He noted that small- and medium-sized firms, mostly in labor-intensive industries, will likely suffer harsher shocks than large conglomerates, in the wake of a possible introduction of the five-day workweek.

Meanwhile, experts and economists, also showed mixed responses on the heated debate. Some say that implementation of the five-day workweek on the basis of thorough analysis and research will help corporations improve productivity, whereas others say the timing for the shorter work system is particularly bad in consideration of continued instability of the economy and financial market.