North Korea recently reorganized work units that failed to meet their foreign-currency earning quotas in the first half of the year, demoting managers of the work units as punishment, Daily NK has learned.
A source based in China told Daily NK on June 2 that the personnel restructuring process began on May 22. At the time, the North Korean government passed along orders through its consulates in China to review whether trade workers and laborers in factories and restaurants had met their quotas for the first half of the year.
On May 25, the findings were reported to North Korean authorities, who handed down orders on May 30 to “demote those responsible [for underperformance]” and to conduct “personnel transfers.” That the measures were handed down just five days after the review results were submitted shows how interested North Korea is to expand its foreign currency earnings.
At one clothing factory, ten work units were reduced to just eight work units, while workers who managed two work units were demoted to “laborer” status. These demotions serve as warnings that those working in China will be subject to the “North Korean style” of punishing under-performing managers by taking away their “social and political lives.”
Many worry that punishments will be handed down on a broad-scale because trade officials and laborer managers in Liaoning and Jilin provinces have suddenly been ordered to conduct personnel reorganizations.
Some speculate that the personnel reshuffling orders are connected to the upcoming Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee in mid-June, which is expected to review whether the government has met its targets for the first half of the year. The source said that the orders have created an atmosphere of trepidation among trade officials and managers in China, including fears that they may even be summoned back to North Korea.
This sense of anxiety has even spread among ordinary workers. “Some workers, after hearing [about the reshuffling] from their managers, reacted by saying ‘If we are suddenly recalled to North Korea, we won’t have a scrap of foreign currency to bring home because we didn’t earn any money during COVID-19. If they’ll just let us keep working here, we’ll work 18 hours a day if we have to.’”
However, some were reassured by the fact that the latest orders were not aimed at ordinary laborers.
The source said that workers believe “it will be difficult to repatriate us immediately and replace us with new laborers,” especially since Chinese managers consider North Korean workers to be “sincere and competent” at their jobs.
Translated by Rose Adams. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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