1. What does it mean?
열정페이 combines passion with pay, ironically describing work that offers little or no compensation while emphasizing love of the field, exposure, or a learning opportunity.
Also written or said as yeoljeongpei
2. The nuance
It is criticism of an arrangement, not a formal legal category. Whether a particular job violates a law requires its actual facts; the slang label alone does not establish that.
3. Examples
“경험만 내세우고 보상이 없으면 열정페이라는 말이 나오지.”
If experience is the only selling point and there's no compensation, people call it passion pay.
“채용 글에서 열정페이처럼 보이는 조건을 질문했어.”
I asked about conditions in the job post that looked like unpaid passion work.
Sources
References support the meaning and usage. Example sentences are written for NoCapWiki.