From Frozen Camps to One-Year Contracts
For nearly four decades, Thailand’s nine border camps have been designed to host, not integrate. Around 100,000+ Myanmar refugees have lived in legal limbo — unable to go home safely, unable to work legally, and increasingly squeezed by declining donor funds.
That logic is now cracking. In August 2025, the cabinet approved a framework allowing registered Myanmar refugees in the camps to obtain one-year work permits, tied to specific employers and provinces. The official narrative is straightforward: Thailand faces labour gaps in agriculture, manufacturing and low-paid service roles; long-stay refugees want dignity and income; aligning both is “win-win.”
| Item | Detail (official framework) |
|---|---|
| Total refugees in 9 camps | ~108,000 people |
| Covered by new scheme | ≈80,000 registered refugees |
| Estimated working-age cohort | ~42,600 eligible for jobs |
| Permit duration | 1 year, renewable |
| Geographic scope | Up to 43 provinces across Thailand |
| Initial permit cost | 100 THB application; permit fee waived in year one |
| Renewal cost | ~900 THB/year + 100 THB application fee |
| Allowed sectors | All sectors open to foreigners (27 “Thai-only” occupations excluded) |
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The uncomfortable truth is that this “opportunity” is being rolled out after aid cuts forced a rethink, not because Thailand suddenly decided on a rights-based integration model. When food rations shrink and donors step back, turning refugees into a formal, taxed labour pool starts to look less like generosity and more like fiscal necessity.
Labour Shortages, Refugee Supply, and the New Maths
Behind the headlines about “refugee opportunity” sits a blunt macro story: Thailand’s labour market is ageing, structurally short of low-wage workers, and heavily dependent on migrants. Before the Cambodia border conflict, about 520,000 Cambodians worked in Thailand; roughly 400,000 have since left, tearing a hole in sectors like construction, seafood and agriculture.
At the same time, Thailand already hosts over 3 million registered migrant workers, mainly from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, and is now moving to legalise a further 500,000–700,000 undocumented workers from four neighbouring countries. The refugee scheme plugs directly into this existing migration machine — but with more political symbolism and more scrutiny.
Rights on Paper vs Reality on the Ground
On paper, refugees who secure a permit are promised standard protections under Thai labour law — including access to social security and provident funds, at least in theory.
But three friction points loom:
- Information and language: Many camp residents speak limited Thai, have never held formal jobs, and may not fully understand complex contracts or grievance channels.
- Power asymmetry with employers: When your legal status, income and physical movement are tied to one employer, bargaining power is thin — especially in remote provinces.
- Enforcement capacity: Thailand already struggles to police abuses in existing migrant-worker schemes, from wage theft to unsafe housing. Adding a new, highly politicised cohort will test inspection capacity further.
The real risk here is normalising a permanent underclass: people technically “legal” but structurally trapped in low-wage work, without a credible path to long-term residency, citizenship or full social protection. Once cemented, these tiers are politically convenient and economically addictive — and very hard to unwind.
Case study: “Min” and “Thiri” have lived in a Thai camp for over 20 years. Their children were born there. When job fairs came to their camp in October, they registered for factory roles in a food-processing plant in a central province — basic Thai language, no prior formal employment.
Their headline numbers look positive:
- Wages slightly above the legal minimum
- Dormitory housing included
- Access to the Thai social security system after registration
But the fine print matters: contracts are in Thai; termination clauses are broad; and if they lose their jobs, they risk losing the right to stay outside the camp. For Min and Thiri, the calculation is simple — “some risk with wages” beats “certain decline with shrinking rations.” For an investor or employer, the calculus should be more explicit: how do we ensure this is a genuine step up, not a reputational time bomb?
| Stakeholder | Short-term upside | Short-term downside / unknowns |
|---|---|---|
| Refugees (working age) | Legal income, mobility beyond camps, first formal work history. | Employer dependency, weak bargaining power, unclear status after year one. |
| Thai employers | New labour pool for shortage sectors; reputational upside if managed responsibly. | Compliance and audit costs, training burden, backlash risk if abuses surface. |
| Thai state | Lower aid burden, more taxable activity, narrative of “managed solution.” | Liability if rights fail in practice; precedent for deeper integration decisions. |
| Donors & NGOs | Pathway to livelihoods; evidence to argue for more sustainable programming. | Reduced leverage if budgets shrink faster than protection mechanisms scale. |
Where most analyses go wrong is in treating this as a soft humanitarian story or a marginal tweak to migrant policy. It is neither. It is labour-market engineering under demographic stress: Thailand is scrambling to reconcile an ageing workforce, volatile manufacturing, and donor fatigue — and refugees are being moved from the “fixed cost” column into the “flexible labour” line item. The question every serious reader should ask is simple: if this is how the state handles one of its most vulnerable populations, what does that imply for long-term social risk pricing across the whole economy?
– Jonathan Reid –
How This Rewires Thailand’s Social Contract (and What You Should Do With It)
Three medium-term questions should anchor how expats, investors and entrepreneurs interpret this shift:
- Does this become permanent?
– If permits quietly roll over each year, refugees become a de facto long-term labour tier without a clear path to deeper status. - Does the model extend to other groups?
– Thailand is already moving to regularise large numbers of undocumented workers; refugee work permits may normalise “experimental” labour tiers that later expand. - How does this interact with other reforms?
– From foreign-business rule easing to data-centre and AI pushes, Thailand is layering higher-value bets on top of a still-fragile low-wage base.
