East Thailand manufacturers are calling on the government to grant citizenship to thousands of migrant laborers to ease a severe worker shortage.
Thailand’s continuing refusal to allow millions of Burmese, Cambodian and Laotian laborers to return to Thailand is crippling some businesses in the Eastern Economic Corridor that rely on low-paid workers to do jobs Thais refuse or lack the skills to do, despite rampant unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, countless migrants who have worked in Thailand for years on work permits could be given citizenship to allow them to return to the country where they have lived and worked for years, business owners reasoned.
HR Digest Group, which includes Kerry Express (Thailand) Plc. and Flash Express Co., normally employs 1,000 migrants to pack and deliver parcels. The company currently needs 500 workers, but can’t get them.
The company is calling on the government to make long-time workers citizens and readmit them to the country.
Wisut Pantawuthayanon, managing director of the Outsourcing Employment Association, agrees, saying there is a critical labor shortage in the East, especially in the electronic and auto parts manufacturing industries.
Thailand has 70 million citizens, but seven million non-citizen migrant laborers. The government should allow the remaining laborers who have continuously worked and are legal workers to get Thai citizenship because it will confirm that the country has 7 million laborers, which will boost foreign investor confidence.
Otherwise, Wisut said, Thailand will continue to lose manufacturing jobs to Vietnam where investors have more confidence that labor shortages will not hobble production lines.
Issaree Pukhansawad, president of the Trade Association of Labor Contractors Association, said it has appealed to the Labor Minister to allow companies to import and hire migrant laborers as they did before the pandemic.
It will help not only solve the labor shortage problem, but will bring money to the government in the form of a 3-percent withholding tax and value-added taxes, which could total 3 billion baht a year, she said.
According to the Labor Department, there were 2.5 million foreigners with work permits as of Oct. 25, with 2.2 million of them being migrant laborers, although it’s unknown how many of those remain in the country. Many left the country despite having valid permits.
