(KPL) Even though there is the serious ongoing economic turmoil in the world, Japan and Korea are recruiting 3,000 workers from Laos for their industrial and agricultural sectors.
Lao officials also said that another two countries, Sweden and Russia want to recruit Lao workers to fill vacancies in their labour market.
Director General of Department of Skills Development and Employment, Mr Phouvanh Chanthavong disclosed yesterday that the demand for Lao workers by the developed countries is on a slight upturned.
However on the contrary, Thailand, a developing country, is planning to downsize its foreign labour force and as many as 100 Lao workers will be retrenched by their Thai employers, said Mr Phouvanh.
He said that Japan, South Korea and Sweden are requesting for 300, 2,000 and 1,000 Lao workers. Russia too requested Lao workers but the number that it needs is not available.
“We are now making arrangements to negotiate with the various governments on the terms and conditions of the working contract, which we think will be carried out in January next year and this will pave the way for the shipping out of Lao workers by as early as February 2009,” said the Director General.
He added, “However, we are concerned about the pay scales for labour, safe working conditions, skill levels of workers, competency in English and adjustment problems of the workers who will be working in new social environments.”
On the other hand, officials in the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare said that while there is still a demand for Lao workers in foreign countries but at the same time in Laos the local employers have vacancies for 58,000 jobs in the industrial and agricultural sectors and so uppermost in their minds is the interest of Laos. The Ministry of Thai Labour has recently publicised in the newspapers and television that they are reducing the number of legal foreign workers from Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia as part of its measures to solve the unemployment problems of Thailand.
This new labor policy aims to reduce the total of two million foreign workers from the three countries to just 800,000 by the beginning next year. Under the new policy, legally registered foreign workers will be allowed to work only in the industries that are significantly short of labor and rejected by Thai workers, such as construction, fishery and agriculture, while the manufacturing sector will be reserved for Thai workers. Thai authorities expect 700,000 Thai workers to be jobless by 2009 and they also said they would be looking for employment. By a rough estimation 300,000 Lao people are working in Thailand but only a fraction of them, 80,000, are registered and so as the new Thai labour policy comes into force the retrenched Lao workers will face stiff competition in finding new jobs in their host country.
This new labour policy of Thailand will affect the plan of Laos to create 108,000 jobs for its growing work force in 2008-09, of which 83,000 jobs will be created domestically while 25,000 jobs will be outsourced to neighboring countries, especially Thailand.However, in the past year, the Lao government was only able to create 40,000 jobs domestically and 8,000 abroad. Therefore, despite the announcement of Thailand’s new labor policy it is certain that there will be an increase in the number of Lao workers sneaking into Thailand to work illegally.
Another reason for Laotians to sneak to Thailand to work illegally is that they get low wages in Laos. A serious employment problem faced by Lao workers in their own country is that foreign firms based in Laos prefer to hire foreign workers as they find that Lao workers are lacking in skills and experiences. The same reason accounts for the fact that businessmen in Thailand are not willing to hire the total number of Lao workers allocated to this country as indicated in the government to government contract.
It's good news for Lao people who want to improve their living standard. No need to limit ourselves by just waiting jobs only inside country. We should seek opportunities no matter where, but not vice versa.
However, for that we should improve ourselves by having a good education. Lao education should concentrate on world market but not only in Laos. Having graduated in Lao institution, universities, they should be able to work everywhere in the world.
Laos is small country. There are few job markets as we have less investment. No investors would be stupid to do business in Laos like produce something to sell to Lao people, the number of whom is just 6.6 million.
That we know very well. So our Lao education should change strategy. To match our education to world standard, first and foremost, we should we know ourselves. Our language is not an International language whereby we can use to communicate with other nation who will hire us to work for them.
I full well know that lots of our people don't like this idea. Please don't blame me if you don't like it, just my opinion.
sweden and Russia are very far away from LAOS, Especially sweden, I think nearest developed countries such as japan or hongkong should consider to hire Lao workers . Yes, the problem is our worker can't speak english well. I saw many Filippino working in Hongkong, those worker able to speak english very well.
sweden and Russia are very far away from LAOS, Especially sweden, I think nearest developed countries such as japan or hongkong should consider to hire Lao workers . Yes, the problem is our worker can't speak english well. I saw many Filippino working in Hongkong, those worker able to speak english very well.
