North Korea’s Outsourced Workforce

By: Jonathan Corrado, Brian Moore

Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

On June 2, three North Korean restaurant workers who fled from their jobs in China arrived in South Korea. In April, another 13 restaurant workers made a similar escape. The workers were part of a North Korean initiative to earn cash for the regime when aid from the Soviet Union dried up and a massive famine struck in the 1990s. The regime continues to send its citizens to work overseas and bring in revenue for the state. Most of the estimated 50,000 North Koreans working abroad are unskilled laborers, who primarily work in China and Russia under strict supervision. Restaurant staff, however, are typically upper class and politically connected - the kind of North Koreans who aren’t inclined to run away.

"North Korea’s Outsourced Workforce" is from foreignaffairs.com, published on June 9, 2016.

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