The number of North Koreans working at the Gaesong Industrical Complex in the North has exceeded eight-thousand.

According to the management office of the inter-Korean industrial park in the North's border city, Shinwon, one of the South Korean companies operating there, earlier this month employed an additional two-hundred-30 North Korean workers, boosting the number of total North Koreans there to eight-thousand-260.

The management office says the number of North Korean workers increased by two-thousand-200 this year alone, expecting it to top ten-thousand by the end of the year.

The pilot phase of the joint industrial complex opened in December 2004. More than a dozen South Korean companies are currently operating in the industrial park in Gaesong located near the inter-Korean border.

The entire complex of the industrial park is expected to be completed by 2012, employing 700-thousand people.