North Korea has between 35,600 and 101,280 workers deployed overseas, generating as much as $800 million annually despite UN sanctions banning the practice, a report by a multinational sanctions monitoring body showed Wednesday.
According to the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team's latest report, North Korean workers remained in at least 17 countries in 2025, generating an estimated $450 million to $800 million.
The majority are believed to be in China and Russia, with China hosting an estimated 20,000 to 70,000 workers and Russia between 15,000 and 30,000 as of the end of 2025. Smaller numbers of North Korean workers were also found in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Africa, working in sectors ranging from construction, manufacturing and fisheries to information technology, healthcare, restaurants and the defense industry.
The findings were contained in the MSMT's third report, which focuses on North Korea's overseas labor program and its alleged violations and evasion of UN Security Council sanctions.
The 11 participating countries — Australia, Canada France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States — issued a joint statement alongside the report.
The countries said the overseas labor network represented a "systemic evasion" of UN sanctions and that North Korea was using the revenue generated by the workers to fund its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
UN Security Council Resolution 2375, adopted in 2017, generally prohibits member states from issuing new work authorizations to North Korean nationals, while Resolution 2397, adopted later that year, required member states to repatriate North Koreans earning income in their jurisdictions by December 2019, subject to applicable law.
The report also said North Korean authorities confiscate 80 to 90 percent of the wages earned by overseas workers. In some cases, the amount workers are required to surrender exceeds what they actually earn, leaving them indebted to the North Korean state, according to the report.
A significant share of the proceeds is used by North Korean trading companies in China and Russia to procure military supplies and other goods, while some is remitted to North Korea, according to a summary of the report provided by Seoul's Foreign Ministry.
The ministry said UN-sanctioned North Korean financial institutions, including the Foreign Trade Bank and Korea Kwangson Banking Corp. have been used in transferring the funds. Cash has also been transported using diplomatic vehicles and pouches and by North Koreans traveling abroad, it said.
According to the report, North Korean state and party bodies, including the Ministry of External Economic Relations, the Reconnaissance General Bureau and Room 39 oversee the deployment of workers, with intermediary organizations in China and Russia facilitating their deployment.
Workers are frequently sent abroad under student visas or programs presented as training or technical exchanges, the report said.
China remains largest host
China is believed to host the largest number of North Korean workers, with an estimated 20,000 to 70,000 currently in the country.
Around 10,000 to 20,000 workers were temporarily repatriated from China between 2023 and 2025, but approximately 10,000 new workers arrived between January 2025 and January this year, according to the MSMT.
Many are concentrated in Chinese provinces bordering North Korea, particularly Liaoning and Jilin, where they work in labor-intensive industries including garment processing, fisheries and electronics manufacturing, as well as IT.
A summary of the report provided by the Foreign Ministry cited several recent cases, including the deployment of about 4,600 North Korean workers to an industrial complex in Longjing, Jilin province, beginning in September 2025 and about 7,800 workers to Hunchun during that year.
North Korean workers have also been frequently observed entering China through customs checkpoints in Dandong since May 2025, according to the ministry.
The report said North Korea has continued seeking additional employment opportunities for its citizens in China, including at electronics assembly plants in border regions.
Russia, meanwhile, has emerged as the second-largest destination for North Korean workers, with their numbers rising sharply since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Between 15,000 and 30,000 North Koreans were working in Russia by the end of 2025, according to the report, primarily in construction, manufacturing and agriculture in the Russian Far East.
The MSMT said North Korean workers have also been deployed to Russian military-related industrial facilities, including a factory producing Geran-2 drones in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone.
The report said the Russian government has used a student visa scheme that allows North Korean laborers to enter the country as students. More than 98 percent of Russian visas issued to North Koreans in 2025 were student visas, according to the Foreign Ministry's summary. Workers entering on such visas have been sent to construction, agricultural and logging sites under the guise of practical training, it said.
North Korean workers in Russia are estimated to generate an average of about $7,500 each in annual wages, while their monthly earnings can be as much as five times those of workers deployed to China, depending on the industry.
The wage gap has increasingly made Russia a preferred destination among North Korean workers, according to the report.
The MSMT was established in October 2024 by 11 countries after the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts monitoring sanctions on North Korea was dissolved. Russia vetoed the renewal of the panel's mandate in March 2024, bringing its work to an end the following month.
The latest report is the MSMT's third. Its first report, released in May 2025, examined North Korea-Russia military cooperation, while its second, released in October, focused on North Korea's illicit cyber activities and overseas IT workers.
In their joint statement Wednesday, the 11 participating countries called on UN member states to take action against those facilitating the employment of North Korean workers and urged the Security Council to reestablish its former Panel of Experts.
"The MSMT will continue to monitor the implementation of UNSCRs (resolutions) related to the DPRK and expose ongoing attempts by the DPRK and others to violate and evade these measures," they said, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
