Eastern fishing, construction and manufacturing businesses are pressing Thailand’s disease-control authority to accelerate the re-entry of migrant workers to ease a worsening labor shortage.
While the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration in July began allowing companies to bring workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos back into Thailand, relatively few workers have returned due to lengthy and expensive procedures put in place by the government to prevent them from bringing the coronavirus back into the country, which has not seen a locally transmitted case of Covid-19 in more than 13 weeks.
Chumpol Dangtuk, a Pattaya construction contractor, said Aug. 26 that his Thai workers have not come back to Pattaya from Issan and he still has no laborers from neighboring countries, preventing projects from being built.
Somsak Todhae, operator of fishing boats in the Gulf of Thailand, said he also is facing a labor crunch, as all of his crewmen are from neighboring countries. The boats cannot sail and he and his family are scraping to make ends meet.
The Thai-Cambodian Border Trade and Tourism Association, Fisheries Association Eastern Region, and businesses in the real estate, manufacturing and agriculture industries in Chonburi, Rayong and Chanthaburi all have made the same complaints to the CCSA.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Prapat Photasuthon insisted that disease-control measures must continue to be strict, but the government is aware of the labor shortage and is working to resolve the situation.
 |
 |
 |
