North Korea has requested a 15-percent pay raise for North Korean employees in the inter-Korean Gaesong Industrial Complex.

Authorities in Pyongyang last week notified the industrial park’s management committee that North Korean workers in the complex will refuse to work overtime unless the committee increases their wages by 15 percent starting next month.

It is the first time the North has requested wage hikes for workers in the park since it launched operations late 2004.

A Unification Ministry official in Seoul said Friday regulations for the complex limit wage hikes at five percent a year, but added the South Korean government will seek negotiations on the matter with the North.

If Pyongyang's request is accepted, wages for North Korean workers will go up from about 57 dollars to 66 dollars a month.