South Korea has once again called on North Korea to resume government-level talks over the employee wage dispute at the joint Gaeseong Industrial Park. 

In a regular briefing Friday, Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol said that if North Korea hopes to hike wages, it should come to the dialogue table and stop laying unilateral pressure on South Korean companies.

Noting that ten companies yielded to pay the workers, the spokesman said the government is advising firms not to sign a pledge stipulated by the North.

The pledge confirms that the companies will pay a late fee on the wage difference if the firms proceed to pay 70 dollars and 35 cents for March, as opposed to the 74 dollars that Pyongyang is demanding.

Lim reiterated that it was North Korea that refused to receive the 70 dollar 35 cent wage that was previously agreed upon between the two Koreas, stressing it is unacceptable for the North to slap a late fee on the South Korean companies.

Lim added the government will cooperate so that the firms can make the payments to North Korean workers in accordance with the existing wage system agreed on between South Korea's Gaeseong Industrial District Management Committee and North Korea's Central Special Zone Development Guidance General Bureau.

The two Koreas have been at loggerheads over the March wage issue for the Gaeseong Industrial Complex workers. The dispute came after last November when North Korea unilaterally revised 13 labor provisions governing the Gaeseong complex and raised the minimum wage starting in March.