Attitudes of Thai Netizens in Social Media Towards Thai Illegal Labors in South Korea During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, South Korea has implemented regulations that allow overstaying residents and Thai illegal labors to return to their home country by offering blacklist exemptions without imposing penalties. Following the lenient controls, many Thai illegal labors desire to return home country. There was significant criticism on social media, as well as varied attitude regarding the immigrants. This study is an attempt to study the attitudes of Thai netizens towards Thai illegal labors in South Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 100 comments about the news were collected from Facebook page ‘Rueng Lao Chao Ni’. The results revealed that there were various attitudes among Thai people including positive, negative, and neutral attitudes. The negative attitude is resulted from worries, anxiety due to the pandemic, the concern about the Thai government management and Thai illegal labors’ behavior, the irresponsibility, as well as bragging personality about the high income. Empathy and human equality were presented as positive attitude. However, some people have a neutral attitude toward Thai illegal labors returning to the home country.