Seoul Station on Subway Line 1 is crowded with commuters on their way to work. /Courtesy of News1

It was found that office workers spend an average of 73.9 minutes on their commute. In particular, the commute time for workers in the Seoul metropolitan area was 82 minutes, the longest in the nation.

According to the "Analysis of Commute Worker Mobility Characteristics" released by the Statistics Korea on the 20th, the commute time for workers in their 30s was the longest, averaging 76.9 minutes. In contrast, the commute time tended to decrease with age.

By region, the commute time in the Seoul metropolitan area, where many workers commute to and from Seoul, was the longest at 82 minutes. This is seen as a result of traffic congestion. On the other hand, the Gangwon region had the shortest time at 57.7 minutes.

Workers with preschool-aged children allocated more time to commuting, averaging 77.0 minutes compared to 73.7 minutes for those without children.

The average travel distance for commuting workers was 17.3 km. Among these, the metropolitan area had the longest distance at 19.0 km, while Jeju had the shortest at 13.9 km.

The ratio of "proximity to work" (within 5 km or within 20 minutes) was higher for women (26.4%) than for men (20.3%).

The average start time for work was 8:10 a.m., and the end time was 6:18 p.m. The highest proportion of people started work at 7 a.m. (31.5%) and left work at 6 p.m. (28.5%).

The average time spent at the workplace was 9.1 hours, with men spending 9.4 hours and women spending 8.8 hours.

The Sejong area had the highest rate of commuting to other regions, with 39.8% of all workers working in different regions. Incheon (29.1%) and Gyeonggi (23.4%) also had high rates of commuting to other regions.

The survey was calculated using mobile location and travel data from the three telecommunications companies, SKT, KT, and LG U+, and is not an officially sanctioned statistic under the Statistics Act, according to Statistics Korea.