Local workers abroad

Laos and Thailand have highlighted areas in which they will intensify economic cooperation and signed an amended Memorandum of Understanding on labour cooperation, Thai media reported on 6 July. The agreement was reached on 6 July by the two governments as Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith led a ...

Over 100 Myanmar fishermen arrested in the Andaman Sea arrived at Yangon International Airport yesterday, after being imprisoned for years in India for fishing in its waters. “I have been jailed for over five years at Port Blair Prison,” said Ko Zaw Lin Aung, who grew ...

Police oppose measures to relax regulations on migrant workers holding a temporary work permit, saying the move breaches international immigration principles and will adversely affect the country’s migrant labour management. The police Immigration Bureau recently voiced its objection to the measures through deputy national police ...

Thai and migrant crewmen risk life and limb for little or no pay. Tunlin is among some 2,900 fishermen who have been rescued and repatriated by the Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation. The operation, started in 2014, continues to help both Thais and migrants mostly from ...

Over 1 million temporary passport holders in Thailand will not be allowed to renew their expiring residency documents, issued between 2009 and 2013 as part of a national verification process. Instead, they are being told to forfeit their legal status, and apply for “pink cards” that ...

Thailand will send 77 illegal Cambodian migrant workers home on 19 February after they were rounded up at a construction site in the southern peninsula of the country, border authorities said on 18 February. Sin Nam Yong, a border official in Banteay Meanchey’s Poipet town, said ...

More than 2400 Myanmar workers left in the lurch while Malaysia and Myanmar dispute a visa fee will have their applications processed under the previous – much cheaper – payment schedule, according to the Ministry of Labour. Myanmar recruitment agencies have been boycotting Malaysia – long ...

Thailand’s Department of Employment is aiming to tackle the growing problem of Thais travelling abroad to work illegally, especially in South Korea. Arak Phrommanee, the department’s director-general, said there had been an increasing incidence of Thais travelling to South Korea as tourists and then picking up jobs without ...

Overseas employment agencies, angry at “bullying” from the Malaysian government, have resolved to boycott the country. Agency chiefs say they will no longer send Myanmar migrant workers to Malaysia, as the recruitment industry has been monopolised by a newly instituted system that has changed the ...

A tenfold increase in visa fees has prompted employment agencies to consider boycotting Malaysia, long a favoured destination of Myanmar migrant workers. The threat, which could be backed up by demonstrations, followed an announcement by the Malaysian embassy to raise visa application costs from US$6 ...