Reuters-Thailand to deport over 90,

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Subject: Reuters-Thailand to deport over 90,000 foreign workers 

Thailand to deport over 90,000 foreign workers
02:21 a.m. Jun 04, 1999 Eastern
BANGKOK, June 4 (Reuters) - Thailand said on Friday it would deport more
than 90,000 foreign workers after their temporary work permits expire in
August.

A senior official at the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare said the
90,911 labourers, mainly from the agricultural sector, would not be given an
extension to their permits.

The workers, who entered Thailand illegally, were threatened with
deportation last year but were later allowed to register with the government
and stay another year after Thai employers said they could not survive
without them.

The foreign workers are mostly paid less than Thais and are prepared to do
unpopular jobs, such as heavy manual labour. Some also have specialist
skills needed in Thai industries.

About 80 percent of the workers are from Myanmar and the rest from Cambodia,
Laos and some from South Asia and other parts of Southeast Asia.

But, with Thai unemployment rising sharply, the government is under heavy
pressure to send the foreign workers home because many of them are occupying
jobs that could be done by Thais.

``The ministry has no plan to extend further a deadline of the deportation
of foreign workers and all of them should have been sent back to their
countries by August 4 this year,'' said the official, who asked not to be
identified.

In addition to the registered foreign workers due for repatriation, Thailand
also has about 600,000 illegal immigrants working in various industries.

The government would like to deport them as well but they are harder to
identify, officials say.

Of the 90,911 workers due to be deported in the next few months, around
43,000 work in the fishing industry, around 19,000 on rubber plantations and
3,700 in the rice-milling industry.