CHANTHABURI, Jan 16 – Thailand’s Bt300 minimum wage has attracted Khmer workers to leave Cambodia to work here in Thailand, causing Cambodia itself to have a labour shortage and to try to recruit Thai workers.
Currently Cambodia is amid the cassava harvest season but as many Cambodian workers are now employed in Thailand due to the incentive of a higher minimum wage, the country itself is lacking sufficient numbers of labourers.
Chanthaburi Border Trade Operators Club president Sombat Jungtrakul said Cambodian cassava farmers in several Khmer provinces for the past week have been hiring many Thais in Chanthaburi to collect and transport the produce in their pickup trucks to various lacations in Cambodia as well as to some tapioca flour factories in Chanthaburi.
Sombat said the wage for cassava transportation in Cambodia is Bt200-250/tonne/round of transportation at a distance of no more than 6km, which is twice the current rate in Chanthaburi.
