Temporary Workers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Mongolia
Mitsuhiro Mimura (The Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia)
Yuji Fukuhara (University of Shimane)This presentation is based on fieldwork and interviews from 5 to 8 September 2017 in
Ulan Bator, Mongolia. We went to construction sites and companies employing North
Korean workers, and looked at the places of construction. We will report the contentsof this fieldwork and discuss the significance of sending and receiving the North
Korean workers from the viewpoint of Mongolia and DPRK relations.
Mongolia has a population of 3 million whereas the DPRK has 24 million. Although
North Korea is very small, it has 8 times more population of Mongolia. Ulan Batoris the only large city in Mongolia and has a population of 1.5 million. Because theeconomy is growing, there is a lot of construction work.
In terms of history, Mongolia was established in 1924, and the DPRK was foundedon 9 September 1948. After the USSR, the second country that established diplomatic
relations with the DPRK was Mongolia in October 1948. During the Korean War,Mongolia supported North Korea together with the USSR and China, providing
material support and horses. It also received many war orphans. From 1948 to1989 was a honeymoon period for Mongolia-DPRK relations. North Korea hadsome flexibility about doing business with the USSR and China. Mongolia, on theother hand, was a landlocked country, located between the Soviet Union and China.
Speaking bluntly, usually countries next to China don’t like China. Of course, thecountries next to Russia don’t like Russia. Nevertheless, Mongolia chose to be a partof the Soviet Bloc, not China, and became a member of COMECON in 1962. The
same year, North Korea withdrew from COMECON because of the bad relations
between China and the Soviet Union. When the DPRK stepped back from the Soviet
Union and China, Mongolia became a very good brother of the USSR.
There are differences on the attitude towards the big brothers. Nevertheless, NorthKorea and Mongolia had very good relations. Kim Il Sung visited Mongolia twice,and mutual visits of leaders, government parties and students were often made, andcontinuous cultural exchange was also performed. However, the honeymoon suddenly
finished because of the democratization of Mongolia between the winter of 1989 tothe spring of 1990. Mongolia introduced a multi-party system and abandoned the oneparty dictatorship of the Mongolian People’s Party which was the communist party.
Mongolia decided to ask the Soviet Union to withdraw its army. Mongolia also started
free trade that was monopolized by the state.
Mongolia recognized the Republic of Korea, the enemy of the DPRK, on 26 March
1990. This change happened in only six months. The DPRK then prohibited the entryof Mongolian citizens to North Korea with South Korean visas or an entry stamp ofSouth Korea in their passport.

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For Japanese citizens, it was permissible to go to South Korea and subsequently toenter North Korea. However, before Kim Dae-jung met Kim Jong-Il, those who had
stayed more than three months in South Korea were prohibited from visiting NorthKorea. That is the reason why I (Mitsuhiro Mimura) didn’t go to South Korea to study
Korean. The two countries also maintained embassies.
In 1994 Mongolia started a new diplomatic policy. Mongolia expanded interactions
and friendly relations with the former socialist communities and also with developingcountries. The DPRK was included in developing countries. Mongolia establishedthe Eastern Thought University, that taught the Juche ideas — not a philosophy,
but anyway, a tool of governance of North Korea. North Koreans are happy to hear
about foreigners learning Juche ideas. Whenever I go to North Korea, there is alecture of Juche ideas for at least two hours. I have to pretend to listen very eagerly
in order to have good relations with North Korean counterparts. The Mongol-Korea
parliamentary group also visited the DPRK together with foreign ministers in 1997
and 1998. In the 1990s, therefore, the Mongolians tried to establish new relations not
only with North Korea but also other countries in Asia.
As for more recent Mongolia-North Korea relations, in 2000 President Kim Dae-jungof South Korea visited Mongolia. The North Koreans were furious and temporarilyclosed their embassy in Ulaanbaatar. As well as providing a new embassy building,Mongolia also exempted North Koreans from a tax on foreign workers in an attempt
to improve relations with the DPRK. This tax exemption remains and is one of thereasons why North Korean workers go to Mongolia. In August 2002, Paek Namsun, the DPRK Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Mongolia, and revised the Treatyof Amity and Cooperation. In 2004 Mongolia signed an agreement with the DPRK
to receive 10,000 North Korean workers. Many of these workers are employed onconstruction sites in and around Ulaanbaatar as the city expands.
Previously, more than 10,000 female workers were employed to engage in sewing
at Gobi. Gobi was a state-owned enterprise that makes cashmere products andembroidery craftwork. Because the wages were relatively high, this was popularwork. However, due to pressure by the United States, these workers were sent back toNorth Korea. As a result, currently most of the North Korean workers in Mongolia aremale and working in construction.
How do North Korean workers come to Mongolia? Mongolian companies whowant workers apply to one of about 60 larger companies. These larger companies
communicate the job description and the number of workers required to the Ministryof Labor of Mongolia. If the documents are valid, the Ministry of Labor sends arequest to their counterpart in North Korea. The DPRK Ministry of Labor then orders
temporary staffing agencies in North Korea to recruit those workers to be sent toMongolia. Some of the workers recruited are teachers, party officials and public
servants in North Korea. Once the necessary number of workers have been recruited,
the Ministry of Labor checks their identities to ensure each individual will be unlikely
to defect. One reason for the mismatch of people sent, to work engaged in, is becauseof this identity checking. Real construction workers in North Korea are not always
sent to construction sites in Mongolia. When selection is completed, a list of workers
is sent to the Mongolian Embassy in Pyongyang. The Mongolian Embassy issues

8visas and once the workers receive the notification that they are able to get a visa, they
go to Mongolia. After arriving in Mongolia they receive training when necessary, andstart to work.

Figure 2

Figure 1
Photographs of North Korean workers inMongolia
Figure 3

What are the terms of a typical contract? From 2017, no workers over 50 years areallowed. The terms of contracts can vary significantly. They range from six months to
one year to five years. Different contracts provide different conditions so some include
travel expenses from North Korea to Mongolia or an allowance for clothing, food, andshelter. Some include response to accidents, health insurance and the possibility of
temporary return home during the contract period. The wages also vary significantly.
A sum of $1000 is high-end.
For the Mongolian side, the merits of Korean workers are firstly acceptance of lowwages, secondly willingness to engage in heavy labor, and thirdly obedience. North
Korean workers do not go on strike and accidents can be overlooked. Also, because
North Koreans are exempt from the foreign workers’ tax the wages paid can be lower
than for other nationalities such as the Chinese.
Problems include the mismatch between the needs of employers and the skills ofworkers. Also, some employers don’t pay wages. Such treatment increases thecomplaints of North Korean workers. In addition, the workers are occasionally
unfamiliar with the machines and tools they are provided with. In North Korea mostmachinery is that of the 1960s and 1970s while in Mongolia it is of the 21st century.
These photographs (Figure 1,2 and 3) show an apartment building under construction.

9North Koreans are doing the work.
These photographs also show North Korean workers, this time in the service
sector. This is the White Flower (Figure 4), one of two North Korean restaurants inUlaanbaatar. The other is called the Pyongyang Restaurant (Figure 5). We were notallowed to take a photo of the workers working inside the restaurant. Chinese andNorth Korean workers often work together in construction and also on farms and at
hospitals and restaurants. Female workers are usually working in restaurants and thelight industry sector. In North Korea many of them are engineers, teachers, researchersand soldiers.

Figure 4
Figure 5

What is the significance of sending and receiving workers for Mongolian-DPRKrelations? Mongolia has retained friendly terms with North Korea (despite therehaving been fluctuations) since the Cold War ended depending on the MongolianSouth Korean relations. In 2011, Mongolia’s new foreign policy guidelines and thecountry’s labor shortage meant there were ‘pull’ factors for North Korean workers.
For North Korea, the chance to earn foreign currency is attractive. For individuals,
going to Mongolia to work represents a chance to live outside of North Korea. ManyMongolians are critical of the regime of the DPRK, but rarely directly to the people inUlaanbaatar. The flow of workers from the DPRK to Mongolia is accepted in terms ofmutual cooperation. The DPRK government does not regard the treatment of its North
Korean workers as exploitative. In return, the Mongolian government says nothing
about North Korea’s development of nuclear power and armaments. This complicates
relations with Japan, South Korea, and the US.
[Iwashita] We Japanese, in particular, often think that North Korea has been isolated
by other countries, but the fact is not so simple. We have five minutes remaining so I
will take a couple of questions.
[Question] I am interested in China. There are also many North Korean workers
in China. What similarities and differences do you see in the case of North Korean
workers in China and Mongolia?
[Fukuhara] Well, in the Mongolian case, the Ministry of Labor of Mongolia and theMinistry of Labor in North Korea cooperate on selection. In the case of China, there
is much less government to government cooperation. Also, most of the North Korean

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workers in China are female and work in the service sector and in light industrial
production.
[Question] Can you give us some information about how you found the people who
you interviewed? Also, did you have someone watching you when you were doing
interviews? Did you just go to the building site and say you want to talk to people?
[Fukuhara] One of the foreign students in the University of Shimane is Mongolian,and her sister is a politician in Mongolia, so she has a lot of connections. Using thatkind of path, we tried to find the companies that employed North Korean workers.

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