In a bid to ease a labor shortage, Thailand is planning to reopen its borders to workers from adjoining countries Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos as per the sources.
Thailand is facing a labor crunch amidst hurting its export and tourism-dependent economy. Hence, officials decided to recall foreign workforce to revive its economic activities because the foreign workers are the major contributor of Thailand’s production industry.
The migrant labor contributes to the major exports of Thailand such as food production and rubber production but due to strict border controls covid rules have virtually stopped the migrant labor.
“The guidelines relating to vaccination status for the migrant workers, quarantine and COVID-19 testing will be decided on Wednesday,” said Pairote Chotikasathien, from the Ministry of Labor.
As per the estimations made by Pairote, the country presently needs around 420,000 foreign workers for construction, manufacturing and seafood industries.
Earlier this year due to the worst COVID-19 outbreak many workers left the country and have not returned so far while the remaining workers who preferred to stay in the country were placed in "bubble and seal" policies under factory and construction quarantine schemes. Thailand’s policies in response to the COVID-19 support the livelihoods of the most vulnerable announced 1 trillion baht package, about 6% of GDP.
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Thailand has nearly 2 million confirmed infections and 19,764 deaths, the majority of which came after April when the Delta variant was detected among migrant workers in a construction camp.