Labour expert warns against importing Sri Lankan workers

A plan to bring in unskilled workers from Sri Lanka is not the right solution to the exodus of Cambodian labourers and it will backfire on Thailand in the long run, a prominent labour expert warned on Monday.

Lae Dilokvidhyarat urged the Ministry of Labour to seriously rethink its plan for Sri Lankans to fill in the void left by Cambodians who have fled home en masse amid rumours that their homes, lives and families would be in danger if they continued to work in Thailand, the Bangkok Post reported.

The large-scale exodus began after the fatal armed clashes between the two countries over disputed border areas last month and is still continuing.

“A plan to use a workforce of Sri Lankans is not a minor issue. I am not certain that this will address the problem,” Mr Lae told CU Radio of Chulalongkorn University.

Sri Lankans would need time to adjust to Thailand as they do not possess the same skills that Thais and workers in the kingdom’s neighbouring countries have learned, said Mr Lae, who is the chief adviser for the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and a former lecturer on labour economy at Chulalongkorn University.

Thai labourers and their colleagues from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have the same skills in farming and other fields, he said.

As well, he said, importing labourers from other countries was more than just an economic issue as it also involves values, including culture and religion, shared by foreign workers and people in the host country.

Thailand takes in unskilled workers from its immediate neighbours because of those factors as they could easily adjust to Thai society, he added.

The country would have another problem when it comes to dealing with Sri Lankan workers after the conflict with Cambodia ends and workers from Cambodia start to return, Mr Lae continued.

“The Ministry of Labour must seriously think about these issues,” he said.

Tens of thousands of Cambodian workers have moved back to their home country, with Thailand facilitating their return by opening the border gates for them.

The exact number of returnees is not known. Government agencies estimate the figure at 500,000, with about 300,000 of them passing through the gates in Chanthaburi province.

On Monday alone, the Ban Laem crossing in Pong Nam Ron district of Chanthaburi allowed about 2,500 Cambodians to leave Thailand, the provincial public information office reported.

Mr Lae estimated that about 1.5 million Cambodians — only 500,000 of them legally registered — worked for Thai employers, largely in the fishing, farming, construction and service sectors.

The Ministry of Labour proposed a plan to bring in workers from Sri Lanka last month.

Labour Minister Pongkawin Lungrungruangkit said last Friday that a memorandum of understanding would be signed with the Sri Lankan government to import 10,000 Sri Lankans in the first step to fill the void by Cambodians.

“This will be another alternative for business operators in managing their workforce,” the Department of Employment said in a Facebook post.

Mr Lae said the best short-term solution was to increase quotas for workers from Myanmar and Laos, and even to woo workers from Vietnam to compensate for the shortage.

He also advised the government to seriously adopt new technologies to move Thailand from labour-intensive industries and to upskill Thai workers to equip them to serve an economy driven less by low-skilled manpower.