Eric Lafforgue | North Korean worker with gloves at a steel factory in Nampho on May 17, 2009
A workplace mystery emerges when looking at present-day North Korea: Millions of men continue to attend officially assigned jobs in the state economy, even though most do not pay survivable wages.
The average official salary in the DPRK is between 5,000 and 10,000 North Korean won a month, roughly equivalent to $1-3 at the black market exchange rate. While retail prices are low in North Korea, two dollars a month is still not enough to keep one alive. Rice costs about 5,000 won per kilogram and corn roughly half this, meaning the average worker could only purchase a few kilograms of corn with an entire month’s salary.
A workplace mystery emerges when looking at present-day North Korea: Millions of men continue to attend officially assigned jobs in the state economy, even though most do not pay survivable wages.
The average official salary in the DPRK is between 5,000 and 10,000 North Korean won a month, roughly equivalent to $1-3 at the black market exchange rate. While retail prices are low in North Korea, two dollars a month is still not enough to keep one alive. Rice costs about 5,000 won per kilogram and corn roughly half this, meaning the average worker could only purchase a few kilograms of corn with an entire month’s salary.
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Andrei Lankov is a Director at NK News and writes exclusively for the site as one of the world's leading authorities on North Korea. A graduate of Leningrad State University, he attended Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University from 1984-5 - an experience you can read about here. In addition to his writing, he is also a Professor at Kookmin University.