Staff From Burma

[JimSiam]

I am finding it hard to get staff, am I able to employ staff from Burma, if so how many can I employ and what are the rules.

[SunbeltAsiaExpert]

You may employ any person who is legally allowed to work in Thailand. A Burmese citizen that is in Thailand on a valid visa (i.e. a non-immigrant visa and not a tourist, education or retirement visa) can be employed so long as your company has the requisite number of Thai nationals employed, made proper/timely payments into the Thai social fund for your employees, and have the required amount of registered capital to allow your company to sponsor a Work Permit for a foreigner to work in Thailand. In practice, employing citizens from Burma, Cambodia and Laos to work in "blue collar" or in manual labor jobs often also requires a potential employer to perform additional tasks to get the these foreign nationals eligible for employment in Thailand. The Labor Department will require the employer to confirm with the local District office about the status of these foreign nationals and they often check the areas quota of Burmese, Cambodian and Laotian workers. These additional tasks are a way to protect local Thai laborers from competition from foreign nationals from these nearby, poor countries as the Thai government doesn't want these nationalities to take away jobs that Thais could be doing.

Some companies do not need to perform these additional tasks to hire workers from Burma, Cambodia or Laos. These would be companies hiring nationals from such countries but hiring them to perform "white collar" professional or technological type jobs in Thailand.

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