{"id":53965,"date":"2023-02-08T14:46:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T05:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=53965"},"modified":"2026-04-05T14:40:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:40:47","slug":"north-korea-prepares-bring-home-workers-china-replace-them-new-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-prepares-bring-home-workers-china-replace-them-new-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"N. Korea prepares to bring home workers in China and replace them with new ones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The North Korean authorities have begun preparing to bring home workers who are currently in China and to send new workers to replace them, Daily NK has learned. In addition to agreeing on the worker swap, North Korea and China also apparently see eye to eye on tightening surveillance and control over the workers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A North Korean consulate in China recently instructed Chinese companies employing North Korean workers and the North Korean trade companies managing those workers that Chinese factories and companies that wish to employ North Korean workers will have to receive a permit and move their place of employment to an economic development zone from now on, a source in China told Daily NK on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently, the majority of North Korean workers are employed at factories in the Dandong Bianjing Economy Cooperation Unit, the Shanghai Lingang Industrial Area, and the Donggang Economic Development Zone, where they live together in dormitories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But some groups of 20 or 30 North Korean workers have been assigned to work and live at factories on the outskirts of big cities or in small towns, rather than at the permitted economic development zones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been customary for the North Korean trading companies that manage North Korean workers in China to assign some of the North Koreans already in the country to work at those small factories when requested by Chinese companies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But small groups of workers living together in towns are not easy to manage or control, the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In contrast with workers who only travel between dormitories and factories in an economic development zone, workers in towns have more freedom to travel outside of their accommodations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That sometimes leads to problems with workers ditching their accommodations or even defecting. Another issue is that internal information, including North Korean workers\u2019 labor conditions, becomes known to the outside world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That in turn leads to attention and criticism from the international community, which is what the North Korean authorities are apparently hoping to avoid through these new guidelines, the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But since the economic development zones in China are managed by Chinese local governments, the guidelines in questions were not something that the North Korean authorities could have decided on their own. In other words, the source said, both sides must have agreed to the guidelines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFrom the perspective of Chinese local governments, more companies operating in the economic development zones means more rent and more taxes. Also, collective control of North Korean workers helps them stay off the radar of the international community,\u201d the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>RECALL OF WORKERS MAY TAKE PLACE IN MARCH<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amid these developments, the recall of North Korean workers currently in China is expected to take place as soon as March.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The source said the overland route between the North Korean city of Sinuiju and the Chinese city of Dandong could even be reopened around mid-March to allow the workers to be repatriated by bus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notably, the North Korean authorities are reportedly planning to bring home all the North Korean workers who are currently in China. North Korean regulations generally limit workers to three years in overseas postings, but quite a few of them have been out of the country for more than six years as a result of the border closing during the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While Chinese companies will have to invest more time and capital in training the workers replacing the skilled ones being sent home, the labor costs for North Korean workers are so cheap that most companies see the benefits as outweighing the costs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily NK&#8217;s source said that North Korea and China intend to \u201cswap the workers quickly because their needs align on this issue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhile the timing hasn\u2019t been settled exactly because of the COVID-19 issue, the workers will be exchanged as soon as the right circumstances are in place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><i>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20230206-1\/\"><i>Read in Korean<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The North Korean authorities have begun preparing to bring home workers who are currently in China and to send new workers to replace them, Daily NK has learned. In addition to agreeing on the worker swap, North Korea and China also apparently see eye to eye on tightening surveillance and control over the workers. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":50541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,1539],"tags":[759,955,1138],"class_list":["post-53965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-north-koreans-in-china","tag-china","tag-workers","tag-overseas-workers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>N. Korea prepares to bring home workers in China and replace them with new ones - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-prepares-bring-home-workers-china-replace-them-new-ones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"N. Korea prepares to bring home workers in China and replace them with new ones\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The North Korean authorities have begun preparing to bring home workers who are currently in China and to send new workers to replace them, Daily NK has learned. In addition to agreeing on the worker swap, North Korea and China also apparently see eye to eye on tightening surveillance and control over the workers. 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