Most flights in Korea are international flights, so a pilot for Korean air probably flies as much as a pilot in the states. If the airlines need fewer flights, they could just go with fewer pilots rather than the same number of pilots flying less.

In the 1990s Korea and Taiwan had issues with accidents caused by military pilots without modern crew management cultures (“never question the captain”, which is a big no in modern commercial aviation), so they went with more career pilots trained from scratch (at American schools) rather than just transitioning military pilots into the role.