Sri Lanka is once again seizing on foreign conflicts to export its labour force, as Thailand announced it will recruit 10,000 Sri Lankan workers to fill shortages caused by the mass return of Cambodian labourers following deadly border clashes.
Thailand’s Labour Minister Pongkawin Jungrungruangkit confirmed that more than 30,000 Sri Lankan workers have already registered, with 10,000 to be deployed in the first phase. The move comes after fighting along the Thai–Cambodian border last month left at least 43 people dead and displaced over 300,000, prompting thousands of Cambodian workers to return home.
Workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines will also be given opportunities under the new policy, Pongkawin said.
Thailand, grappling with an ageing population and shrinking workforce, is already reliant on more than three million registered foreign workers across agriculture, construction, and manufacturing, according to the International Labour Organization. The sudden exodus of Cambodian workers has only deepened the labour gap – one Sri Lanka has been quick to fill.
This latest deal mirrors Sri Lanka’s earlier arrangement with Israel, where Colombo dispatched thousands of workers to fill agricultural and construction jobs after Tel Aviv revoked the permits of Palestinian labourers. As the war in Gaza intensified, Palestinian workers were systematically barred from entering Israel, leaving a vacuum that Sri Lanka and other states rushed to exploit.
Human rights advocates condemned Colombo’s readiness to profit from Israel’s military campaign, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, accusing the government of acting as an enabler of occupation while ignoring the risks faced by its own citizens in a war zone.
Despite repeated reports of Sri Lankan migrant workers facing abuse and exploitation abroad, successive governments have treated labour export as a key economic lifeline. With remittances forming one of the country’s largest sources of foreign exchange, officials have eagerly looked to global crises as opportunities to secure new markets for its workers.