North Korea is currently recruiting workers to engage in foreign currency-earning activities overseas, Daily NK has learned.
Provincial authorities nationwide received an order on Mar. 4 calling for the recruitment of workers for foreign currency-earning jobs “to resolve the state’s cash shortages through bolder foreign currency-earning activities to mark the new year,” a reporting partner in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The reporting partner said the authorities appear to be pushing for an increase in foreign currency-earning activities abroad given that the global COVID situation has stabilized and because the situation in China looks better now, although circumstances in that country bears watching a bit more.
In fact, North Korea plans to send even more people not only to China and Russia, which share a border with North Korea, but to other socialist nations as well.
The reporting partner said the state is taking proactive and widescale efforts to new recruit workers, who will engage in “more innovative foreign currency-earning activities than in the past.”
In particular, North Korean authorities ordered the nationwide recruitment of female workers between the ages of 18 and 30 for the “Hangso Economic Unified Company,” as well as older male technicians.
The authorities also ordered that agencies and enterprises in each province first engage in the process of selecting individuals, who will then undergo individual interviews with the city and county party committees.
After that, candidates will undergo more individual interviews with provincial party committees, with successful candidates receiving recommendations and being placed in a roster to be called upon for duty abroad.
Currently, North Korean authorities are largely selecting female workers who can sew or do handicrafts and male workers who are electricians or good with computers, including graduates of computer-related academic departments or universities and people who have worked in the field, the reporting partner said.
The authorities have also implored cadre departments to take a good look at candidates’ careers and select well-prepared people who have shown ideological consistency.
The reporting partner said all workplaces in South Pyongan Province received the order to start recruiting candidates on Mar. 10.
“The provincial party committee called on the workplaces to quickly put together and send the paperwork for the candidates,” he said.
The reporting partner further noted that the selected workers are set to be sent overseas in early May, and that the government plans to recruit more foreign exchange-earning workers in the future as well.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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