Despite the restrictions placed on North Korea’s foreign currency-earning activities, the regime has found a way around the sanctions that allows them to send North Korean laborers abroad.
“At the end of October, I saw around 100 laborers heading to China and I asked one of them where all of them were going. He said that many laborers are going abroad despite the sanctions,” said a North Hamgyong Province-based source on November 13. “They are working as ‘engineering apprentices’ in a Chinese factory.”
“There is a high possibility that the laborers are going to Hunchun or Tumen, which is where many laborers have gone in the past,” the source added.
Engineering apprentices refer to laborers at North Korean factories or enterprises who are given the opportunity to train in the role over a fixed period. They are similar to South Korean university students who attend night school.
“The laborers heading to China had all worked in factories in China in the past,” said the source. “They renew their Chinese visas after a month of work by heading back to North Korea, before returning to China.”
These activities, however, are aimed at skirting the prohibition of labor export under UN Resolution 2371. North Korea appears to be sending its laborers abroad as “students” in a way that skirts sanctions and allows the regime to continue to earn foreign currency.
This activity is likely the result of a “deal” between the regime and foreign currency-earning enterprises together with the Chinese authorities as all three parties would need to understand the arrangement.
A source in China close to North Korean affairs told Daily NK that it is an attempt to skirt international sanctions. “North Korean trading companies, in concert with the North Korean authorities, have found a way to send human resources abroad by referring to the laborers as ‘engineering apprentices,’ he said, adding that the Chinese authorities have quietly accepted this state of affairs.”
“Chinese enterprises are also supporting the import of North Korean laborers through such methods because there is a major gap in wages between Chinese and North Korean wages,” he added.
North Korean laborers in China are receiving lower wages than in the past and are faced with backbreaking levels of work.
“North Korean managers tell the laborers that because they have to work every day, they have to take their rest days during their return to North Korea to renew their visas,” a separate source based in China told Daily NK.
“These apprentices get less money than regular laborers and are given the same levels of work, so the only people benefiting from all of this are the managers.”
