The once booming Korean outdoor market continued to decline to an estimated $4.5 billion in 2017 from $6 billion in the previous year, according to local experts, and it's expected to be flat this year. It's still relatively big, considering that NPD has estimated that the total Korean sporting goods market was worth $15 billion at retail in 2017. The Korean outdoor market was estimated to have reached a level of $7 billion in 2014. One of the factors was the gradual elimination of work on Saturdays for all the companies in the country between 2005 and 2011. The Korean government set a limit of 52 hours for the regular work week as of last July 1, starting with companies that have more than 300 employees, but the regulation is not predicted to impact the hobbies of the wider population until it becomes generalized for all the companies with more than 50 employees in January 2020.

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