[TASS/Yonhap]
[TASS/Yonhap]

A Russian staffing agency has posted an advertisement offering to supply North Korean women workers to restaurants and factories, raising fresh concerns about the continued flow of North Korean labor into Russia despite a UN Security Council ban on employing such workers abroad.

NK News, a US-based outlet specializing in North Korea coverage, reported Wednesday that the ad appeared on Avito, a Russian online marketplace.

In the listing, the agency promoted its ability to place 40 North Korean women workers at businesses in the Moscow region. It highlighted their skill at making kimbap and said they were available for work in restaurants as well as on production lines, in textile factories and in agriculture.

The offer came with conditions, however. The 40 workers must operate as a single team and cannot be split across multiple worksites — an arrangement analysts say appears designed to let North Korean authorities maintain control over the workers' movements and assignments.

The working conditions described in the ad were harsh: workers would be on the job 26 to 28 days per month and put in 11-hour days — in effect building in extended hours as a baseline.

The agency listed a wage of 480 rubles per hour, equivalent to roughly 8,200 won. At that rate, a single worker could earn up to 147,840 rubles, or about 2.53 million won ($1,790), per month.

Analysts say it is unlikely the workers would actually receive that full amount. Peter Ward, a North Korean economy specialist at the Sejong Institute, estimated that "middlemen, officials and the North Korean government will take 75 to 90 percent of the wages."

Russia has seen a growing influx of North Korean workers as a labor shortage deepened following the prolonged war in Ukraine. Last month, a number of North Korean women were spotted working at a mandu factory near Moscow.

North Korean women workers have also reportedly been hired in large numbers at textile factories, agricultural facilities and logistics centers in western Russia. Job postings seeking Korean-language interpreters for factories and construction sites employing North Korean workers have also been multiplying on Russian recruitment sites.

NK News reported that Russia issued approximately 36,000 education visas to North Korean nationals last year — a practice analysts say appears intended to bring in laborers under the guise of student status, circumventing UN Security Council sanctions that prohibit the employment of North Korean workers.

The issue of North Korean overseas workers has grown beyond a simple question of labor supply into a broader controversy over sanctions evasion, wage exploitation and labor rights violations. As evidence mounts that North Korean workers in Russia are spreading into restaurants, factories and agricultural facilities, pressure on the international community to monitor and respond is expected to grow.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com