The nature of economic development in a more globalized world has strengthened the role of international
migration in the economy of Thailand. Income disparities among countries have generally widened so that
there is a stronger incentive to migrate. A number of features of economic development in Thailand have
stimulated international migration. Much of the manufacturing sector is financed by foreign direct
investment, and those companies employ both highly skilled and low-skilled migrant workers. As both
outbound and inbound international migration have increased, private recruitment and placement agencies
have been established that promote and facilitate migration. The Government of Thailand has promoted
the country as a destination for international tourism, medical care, secondary and tertiary education, and
retirement, each of which leads to an increase in international migration.
There are more than 3.5 million persons without Thai nationality living in the country, including many
long-term residents and children of migrants born in Thailand. More than 3.0 million of them are working in
the country.
Thailand has been attracting low-wage workers from neighbouring countries as well from countries further
away since at least the early 1990s. It initiated a policy to register workers from Myanmar in ten provinces
along the border in 1992. That policy has steadily expanded in scope to include workers in low-skilled
occupations from Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar in every province in
Thailand. In 2010, there were one million workers from those three countries at some stage of registration
and approximately 1.4 million dependents and others who were not registered.
The Government of Thailand is attempting to put in place a system to recruit all migrant workers from
the three neighbouring countries through formal procedures. It signed Memoranda of Understanding with
the three countries for that purpose in 2002 and 2003. By the end of 2010, however, fewer than 80,000
migrant workers had entered the country through that formal process.