Ethnic Koreans from Yanbian in China’s northeastern Jilin Province reportedly earn a combined 900 billion won or 800 million U.S. dollars a year working in South Korea.

Chinese daily China News reported on Thursday that 200-thousand ethnic Koreans from Yanbian have worked in South Korea every year since 2007 when the South allowed ethnic Koreans living abroad to seek employment in the nation.

A study by the employment bureau of Yanbain Korean Autonomous Prefecture shows one seventh of the city population and one third of the rural population in the region are working abroad. Most of those are working in South Korea as they speak the Korean language.