This article was displayed on the ChosunBiz RM Report site at 4:30 p.m. on Apr. 6, 2026.
Accountants, once called the "guardians of capitalism" and the "flower of the professions," are wavering. It is the result of an entrenched overload structure that repeats every audit season. The practice of reducing recorded working hours, known as "time-eating," is also rampant. We examined on-the-ground realities through testimony and surveys from more than 200 current and former accounting industry workers. [Editor's note]
Industry voices say the reality of accountants suffering from heavy workloads should be approached not as a simple labor issue but in terms of "audit quality." If low-price engagement competition continues under audit hours that fall short of what is needed, high-quality corporate accounting audits will ultimately be hard to expect.
Experts also said that although financial authorities are tightening regulations to raise audit quality, this is not a fundamental solution. They noted that the realistically required audit hours must be guaranteed, and appropriate audit fees should back them up.
◇ Standard audit hours whose "minimum threshold" has become a ceiling
The most urgent task cited is making "standard audit hours" realistic. Standard audit hours are a minimum threshold set to maintain audit quality, but on the ground they are effectively functioning like a ceiling. As a result, a structure is becoming entrenched in which both audit hours and fees are pushed down.
Kim Beom-jun, a professor in the Department of Accounting at Catholic University, said, "As the standard audit hours system shifted from a mandatory rule to a recommendation and competition for engagements intensified, audit hours have also been decreasing," adding, "While the legal risk borne by accountants has grown, contracts are being made with insufficient time, and in the end it has become a structure that burns through people."
There are also calls to redesign the way standard audit hours are calculated. Currently they are calculated based on industry, the size of corporations, the number of consolidation subsidiaries, and so on, but they cannot properly reflect the rapidly changing industrial environment.
Kim Jin-tae, a professor in the Department of Accounting at Chung-Ang University, said, "We adjust standard audit hours every three years, but because they are based on past models, a gap with reality is inevitable," adding, "There is a need to completely redesign the framework through continuous improvements."
Some say a social consensus is needed for appropriate audit fees. Audit fees are usually determined as "audit hours invested × hourly rate," but amid low-price engagement competition, not only hourly rates but the audit hours themselves are shrinking.
The problem is that the audit hours actually needed have not decreased. As a result, the so-called "time-eating" practice of keeping actual working hours the same while only reducing the records is widespread.
Experts point out that in a structure that artificially reduces audit hours, it is hard to expect appropriate audit quality. Jeong Seok-woo, a professor in the Department of Accounting at Korea University, said, "The structure should shift so that prices are formed based on audit quality, not audit hours."
Accountants commonly assess that there are limits to overcoming this with technology such as artificial intelligence (AI). Lee Jun-gyu, a professor in the Department of Accounting and Taxation at Kyunghee University, said, "In a structure where work is concentrated in specific seasons, even after adopting AI, the burden may actually have increased in the short term," adding, "From the perspective of accounting firms, there are also limits to flexibly increasing headcount to match busy periods."
◇ Limits despite self-policing efforts… burden remains even with AI adoption
The Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants has moved to devise measures to address the long working hours during audit season. By May, after gathering opinions from on-site practitioners and young accountants, it plans to prepare "compliance guidelines" that accounting firms must follow. It also plans to present medium- to long-term measures within the year, including improvements to related laws and regulations.
Hwang Byeong-chan, head of the Young Certified Public Accountants Association, said, "Low-price engagements and working hours are a cyclical structure that affect each other," adding, "If working hours are properly reflected, it will be difficult to maintain the low-price engagement structure itself." He added, "To root out the time-eating practice, it is necessary to activate in-house reporting centers and strengthen sanctions."
However, there are limits to industry self-policing alone, and experts stress that corporations and financial authorities must also work together to improve audit quality. They say corporations need to recognize audit costs they bear not as a simple expense but as an "essential investment" to reduce larger social costs, such as accounting failures or investment losses.
Jeon Gyu-an, a professor in the Department of Accounting at Soongsil University, said, "Shareholders, creditors, and audit committees need to play a more active role," adding, "If audit fees and hours drop sharply, there needs to be a challenge to whether this audit can be properly carried out."
Compared with losses that occur when accounting problems erupt or with stock price crashes, it is hard to see appropriate audit fees as a burden. Audit fees are about 0.01% relative to the assets of companies listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets.
Professor Kim Beom-jun said, "Accounting transparency is not just a problem for accountants; it is a structure built together by supervisory authorities, corporations, and investors," pointing out, "A structure in which the burden is concentrated only on accountants, as it is now, is not sustainable."