"Who Wants to Hire 40 Skilled Kimbap-Making Women?"... A 'Suspicious Ad' Appears Online

One Team of 40 Members, Hourly Wage of 8,200 Won
North Korean Government Poised to Take 75 to 90 Percent of Wages

A Russian labor agency has drawn attention by advertising that it can supply North Korean female workers to restaurants or factories.

Residents wearing summer clothes walking on the street. Chosun Central TV. Yonhap News Agency.

NK News, a U.S.-based media outlet specializing in North Korea, reported on August 12 (local time) that a recruitment company had posted an advertisement on the online marketplace Avito, claiming it could supply 40 North Korean female workers to workplaces such as restaurants or factories in the Moscow area.

According to the advertisement, the company introduced the North Korean female workers as skilled in making kimbap and stated they could be assigned to restaurants as well as production lines, textile factories, and the agricultural sector. However, there was a condition that the 40 North Korean female workers must work as a single team and could not be split up and dispatched to multiple workplaces. This measure appears to be intended by North Korean authorities to monitor the movement of workers and restrict them to one workplace.

The North Korean women are required to work for 26 to 28 days a month, with 11-hour shifts each day. The wage offered by the agency is 480 rubles (about 8,200 won) per hour, meaning each worker could earn up to 147,840 rubles (about 2.53 million won) per month.

However, it appears that the actual amount received by workers is much less. Peter Ward, a North Korea economy expert at the Sejong Institute, estimated that brokers, officials, and the North Korean government would take between 75% and 90% of the wages.

With Russia facing a labor shortage, the inflow of North Korean workers has been on the rise recently. Last month, it was confirmed that many North Korean female workers were employed at a dumpling factory near Moscow, and it is known that a significant number have also been hired at textile factories, agricultural facilities, and logistics centers in western Russia.

There has also been a rise in advertisements on Russian job sites recruiting Korean language interpreters for factories, construction sites, and other workplaces where North Korean workers are employed.

Russia issued about 36,000 educational visas to North Korean residents last year. According to analysis by NK News, this appears to be a tactic to circumvent United Nations Security Council sanctions that ban the employment of North Korean workers by bringing them into the country under the guise of being students.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.