Pattaya’s love-hate relationship with illegal Myanmar workers

[reader]

From Pattaya Mail

By Barry Kenyon

Myanmar young men, deported from Thailand, will likely be conscripted into the junta’s army.

The arrest in Pattaya earlier this week of 52 Myanmar nationals without work authorization papers highlights yet again the acute labor crunch. Pattaya employers cannot fill all the jobs with Thais alone and need many tens of thousands of guest workers from neighboring countries and Myanmar in particular.

The main gaps currently are in the hotel and food industries as Pattaya prepares for a record-breaking Songkran, but the Confederation of Thai Trade and Industry also points of shortages in the construction sector as the building boom continues. According to the real estate research center AREA, the Chonburi housing market is worth more than any other province in Thailand.

But Myanmar nationals have their stern critics in Pattaya and elsewhere. Khaosod reports that xenophobia and anti-Burmese sentiment is spreading in Thailand through social media. On Facebook, Paiboon Arunthanawanich claims that the medical budget has to be shared with aliens and that Myanmars are taking away Thai jobs.

Other Facebook critics complain that Thai budgets should be spent only on Thai citizens and write enthusiastically about president Trump’s immigration policies in USA. But, as Khaosod stresses, these sentiments have lost sight of the fact that low-paying manual jobs are no longer attractive to Thais whose actual unemployment rate is under one percent, mostly graduates looking for their first job.

Continues at

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/pattayas-love-hate-relationship-with-illegal-myanmar-workers-495479

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, reader said:

On Facebook, Paiboon Arunthanawanich claims that the medical budget has to be shared with aliens and that Myanmars are taking away Thai jobs.

I am not on Facebook but I would query Khun Paiboon's assertion. As a non-Thai, I sometimes attend a public hospital and I have to pay the same published rate as for Thais, even though most Thais will have enrolled in their vastly cheaper medical scheme. I cannot understand why Myanmar workers as well as those from other neighbouring countries would not have to pay for medical treatment the same as any other non-Thai.

The point about Myanmar boys taking jobs away from Thais is patently nonsense, for the reasons outlined in the last sentence of the article.

[jason1975]

What about Vietnamese, Laos and Cambodian workers?

[bkkmfj2648]

4 minutes ago, jason1975 said:

What about Vietnamese, Laos and Cambodian workers?

Exactly.  Many of them (Burmese, Vietnamese, Laos, and Cambodian) are the backbone for the work that needs to be done in Thailand that cannot be done by the local Thai people because:

• negative growth birth rate - now the third lowest in the entire world:

                      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1036458368507497&id=100064300317042&set=a.356177206535620

• extremely low unemployment rate near 1%,
• many Thais have already moved up the socioeconomic status and don't want to do these types of manual labor jobs and/or be MBs for us farangs.

Consequently, these migrant workers are what keep the Thai economy chugging along.

[vinapu]

7 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

 

• many Thais ..... don't want to.... be MBs for us farangs.

 

as long as only one will be left it will work for me

[khaolakguy]

13 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

negative growth birth rate - now the third lowest in the entire world:

That is interesting, and the extent of it surprising. I wonder if it correlates with the proportion of the population who are LBGT..

[Raposa]

6 hours ago, khaolakguy said:

That is interesting, and the extent of it surprising. I wonder if it correlates with the proportion of the population who are LBGT..

Fertility is declining on so many continents with the exception of Africa. The drivers of this varies by locale. In Asia one significant driver is the high cost of child care and good education coupled with the very high competition and stress in bringing up children in the educational arms race. Couples often prefer having pets instead of children. This driver alone outweighs any LGBT influence on the numbers.

[Raposa]

20 hours ago, jason1975 said:

What about Vietnamese, Laos and Cambodian workers?

It is not exactly the same although negative sentiment is directed towards them as well. Consider this: Laotians speak a language and have a culture that is very close to Thai, it is easier for them to go under the radar and assimilate and they are considered close cousins of the Thais, whereas Myanmar is frequently featured in popular historical thai TV series as villains. Their language is from a different language family. The memory of the sacking of Ayutthaya in the 18th century by the Burmese remains alive among the Thais. This last point can be difficult for some westerners to comprehend as history is often dismissed and ignored, but Eastern Europeans can relate to these sentiments.

Some of these sentiments are reciprocated on the Myanmar side. Some Burmese newspapers will dismissively refer to modern Thailand as Siam, alluding to the defeats that kingdom faced in the 18th century. 

Burmese immigration to Thailand has also been very significant compared to the other nationalities since the 1990s when Thai economy really took off. This is related to the long civil war of that country.

All in all, Myanmar and Thai history is strongly tied together in a love hate relationship, which set them apart from the other nationalities. Thus when tensions rise over immigration it is often directed towards the Burmese, although it will affect other ASEAN nationalities too. When the police decide to raid and you don’t have a work permit you will get deported regardless of nationality, but arguably the consequences for young Burmese men are higher.

[jason1975]

Thanks for providing historical context @Raposa

I understand the situation better.

The Myanmar guys I know who are working in bars in Patpong seem to be on legitimate work permits. I have not heard of them needing to make border runs. Kudos to their employers for taking care of them!

[bkkmfj2648]

5 hours ago, Raposa said:

The memory of the sacking of Ayutthaya in the 18th century by the Burmese remains alive among the Thais.

I would also add Sukhothai.

Earlier this month, we had to go to Sukhothai for a family emergency in my boyfriend's family, and during the non visiting hours at the hospital, he took me to see the amazing Wat Si Chum in the Sukhothai Ancient City, where he specifically told me that it would be much more beautiful if it had not been for the Burmese destruction in the Burmese-Siamese War of 1584–1593.

https://www.tourismthailand.org/Attraction/wat-si-chum

 

[10tazione]

5 hours ago, jason1975 said:

The Myanmar guys I know who are working in bars in Patpong seem to be on legitimate work permits.

I think all those work permits expired in February 2025. Thailand agreed to reniew them for 2 more years but in the application process there is a step "Contract signing at the [Myanmar in this case] embassy" where they are currently all stuck ...