North Korean employees at the inter-Korean Gaesong Industrial Complex will see a five-percent pay raise starting this month.

A Unification Ministry official in Seoul said Friday that the industrial park’s business council proposed the worker pay raise, which was to be signed by North Korean authorities later in the day.

Under the agreement, wages for about 16-thousand North Korean workers will go up from about 57 dollars to 60 dollars a month.

It's the first time the North Korean employees have won a wage hike, although the North has
requested such raises on several occasions since the park launched operations in late 2004.