Governor Phakaphong announced the statistic yesterday (Dec 16) at the opening of a new “one stop service center” for registering migrant workers set up at the Anupas Wiwitthakarn Co Ltd building on Chao Fa West Rd in Wichit. The landmark building was long known locally simply as “the Honda showroom”, but in recent years has stood empty.
The 50,000 workers still waiting to be officially re-registered are expected to be approved within the next three months, Gov Phakaphong explained.
“The Phuket Government [Provincial Office] has worked together with the Phuket Provincial Employment Office, the Immigration Office and other relevant offices in order to open this ‘one-stop service center’, in order to provide services so that workers form these three countries can be re-registered,” he said.
Phuket Provincial Employment Office Chief Santi Nantasuwan explained that 62,278 workers have been registered in Phuket.
The work permits for 59,075 of those workers will expire between March 31 and June 30 next year.
“Employers of these workers can now come to the centre to re-register their workers from now to March 31,” Mr Santi said.
However, the work permits of the remaining 3,203 legally registered migrant workers in Phuket will expire before March 31, he said.
“Our office has been accepting renewal applications for these workers since Sept 2. So far the work permits of 1,967 of these workers have been renewed,” he added.
Mr Santi reminded employers that according to a Cabinet resolution on Aug 20, all that was needed to renew a work permit for a migrant worker from Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar was just the worker’s passport, travel document, temporary passport or certificate of identity – and the existing work permit itself.