More Burmese Workers Leave Malaysia

By SAW YAN NAING

More than 100 Burmese migrant workers have returned to Burma over the last week after losing their jobs in Malaysia due to the impact of the global economic slowdown, according to a labor rights group in Malaysia.

The secretary of the Malaysia-based Burma Workers’ Rights Protection Committee (BWRPC), Ye Min Tun, said that some 118 Burmese migrants, working mostly in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, were sent back to Burma on December 6 and 8 by their employers after their companies had cut back on staff due to falling orders and a decrease in business.

The recent employment cutbacks follow a similar situation at the Press Metal Berhad aluminum factory in Malaysia, which in late November repatriated 300 Burmese migrants who lost their jobs because of the economic slowdown.

There are an estimated 500,000 legal and illegal Burmese migrant workers and refugees in Malaysia, according to Ye Min Tun.

In Thailand, about 3,000 Burmese migrant workers in border town Mae Sot became jobless in late November, an estimated 400 of whom have returned to Burma, according to Mae Sot-based Yaung Chi Oo Burmese Workers Association.

On December 2, Burma’s Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein stated that there are “plenty of jobs available for millions of Burmese migrant workers if they are forced to return home.”

He was quoted in the state-run Myanma Alin newspaper as saying that Burma would not be affected by the global financial meltdown.

However, an exiled labor rights activist in Thailand disagreed with the Burmese premier’s comments.

“It is a groundless statement,” Moe Swe, the head of the Yaung Chi Oo Burmese Workers Association, said. “If there are plenty of jobs for people in Burma, why have millions left Burma to work abroad?”

There are an estimated 4 million Burmese working abroad, predominantly in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, said Moe Swe.

Despite the economic downturn, Burmese people still come to look for jobs in Malaysia, Ye Min Tun said. In one week, about 200 Burmese migrant workers arrive here looking for jobs, added the BWRPC secretary.