Development on Thailand’s practice toward Migrant Workers, 1978-2008: Government Views and Policies

Abstract

Thailand's economic competitiveness has continued to depend on cheap and unskilled labor and has paid little attention in technology development. The country has been unable to reach a concrete policy on foreign workers, instead relying on incoherence policy; imbalance of labor demand and supply and vague goals. Without an effective policy on immigration, Thailand has been facing with many problems, including the illegal actors who benefit from undocumented immigrants.

The article focuses on the development of Thailand’s measurements in response to the flow of immigrant workers during 1978 – 2008 and aims to contribute a new understanding on Thailand’s migration policies in aspect of government views in each transitional period. It is arguable that the evolution of policies during this period is that Thailand’s policies on managing migrants are not designed with a holistic approach, but instead isolates migration issues from the domestic labor market, without long-run policies, and overlooked the actual causes of the problems. National Security is the crucial fundamental on the government view. Hence, The Thai government has been concerned with and has attempted to solve this problem for many years, though after three decades of development, Thai policies in managing migrant workers are still ineffective.