Why Cambodian workers keep crossing into Thailand

Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians returned home during a border conflict with Thailand. An explainer on the crisis at home driving them back across the border.

File photo: Cambodian migrant workers return home through the Ban Laem border checkpoint in Battambang province in early August 2025. Photo: Roun Ry/HaRDstories

By
Phoung Vantha

Published 25 February 2026
7 min read

Sovanna and her husband, Vuth, tried finding jobs when they returned from Thailand to Cambodia, but they’re now deeper in debt than they were when they left.

She briefly worked as a food vendor in the border city of Poipet, whilst her husband stayed at home to search for new employment. Vuth initially secured a construction job, but the boss never paid his full salary, so he quit.

The couple’s debt is piling up, Sovanna told HaRDstories.

“I have to borrow money from other people to repay the loans,” said Sovanna, who asked to use a pseudonym, as did her husband.

Cambodian migrant workers have always faced issues such as unpaid wages, withholding of identity documents, threats of deportation or arrest, and a lack of access to justice. Most engage in what are known as “3D jobs” – positions that are dirty, dangerous, and difficult. Now that they’ve returned en masse from Thailand during months of border conflicts, they struggle to find jobs that meet their needs, observers say.

As a result, Cambodian workers continue to cross into Thailand in search of work, risking arrest, threats, and exploitation at the hands of brokers and employers.

What’s the motivation behind this? The primary drivers of this movement remain a toxic combination of limited domestic employment and an ongoing microfinance crisis, pushing families into cycles of migration they struggle to escape.

The microfinance trap

Lack of work pushes people abroad, but it’s debt that hastens their decision. In 2020, Cambodia had the world’s highest average microfinance loan size, at 4,280 USD. That is higher than 95 percent of Cambodians’ annual incomes, according to a study that year. Average loan sizes have remained high ever since. The same researchers found 2.8 million microloans held across the country’s 3.6 million households, with some families holding multiple loans.

International development agencies originally designed microloans to offer low-income individuals a chance to buy tools and goods that could advance their careers, with repayment coming as they earned more money. But as financial institutions took over the industry, they aggressively marketed the loans, raised interest rates above 100 percent, and seized household and farmland titles – often a family’s only economic foundation – as collateral on loans that borrowers had little hope of repaying.

Migrant workers often cite debt as the reason that they migrate abroad.

That’s the case for Vuth and Sovanna, who left their long-time construction jobs in northern Bangkok after a Thai co-worker attacked Vuth in July. Back in Cambodia, with monthly loan payments of 200 USD and limited job options, they struggle to stay afloat.

Cambodia’s minimum wage starts at 210 USD per month with additional benefits, but it only applies to the garment, footwear, and travel goods industry and excludes “informal” jobs like construction or Sovanna’s food vending gig.

Cambodians say they take out loans for building houses, farming, improving livelihoods, medical treatment, and transportation. Even garment workers in exporting companies can’t repay their loans, according to a 2023 survey among unionised workers, because the minimum wage and benefits fall short of a living wage – enough income to cover basic necessities like food, housing, transport, and medical care.

This debt crisis drives significant numbers abroad. According to a report from 2024, approximately 1.3 million Cambodian migrant workers were estimated to be abroad, with the majority concentrated in Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan.

Cambodia’s Labour ministry said at that time that migrant workers sent at least 2.9 billion USD in remittances annually – equivalent to about six percent of Cambodia’s GDP in 2024.

By mid 2025, more than 900,000 Cambodian migrant workers returned from Thailand out of concerns they could be stuck, or even abused, amid a border conflict between the neighboring countries. When Cambodian labour rights NGO Central surveyed these returnees, they found that 71 percent were in debt, and of those, 85 percent said they were unable to keep up with repayments.

Two financial industry groups – the Association of Banks in Cambodia and the Cambodia Microfinance Association – said that they would allow workers to restructure loans if workers present documentation and banks deem it an “actual need.”

But even loan restructuring wouldn’t bring relief, Sovanna said.

“[The bank] agreed to postpone the repayment schedule when I requested it, but I will have to repay twice as much in the upcoming months,” she said. Sovanna explained that their restructuring option was to skip one month of repayment after they returned in August, pay double in the second month, and then continue their repayment schedule as usual.

Why returnees can’t find work

Eang Sanan decided to go to Thailand in 2019 to help repay the 10,000 USD she and her husband, Vin Lors, owed a microfinance institution.

“We moved to Thailand because it was hard to make money here,” she told Channel News Asia. The couple was able to secure jobs as construction workers in Phnom Penh’s suburbs after fleeing Bangkok in late July. However, not every returned worker is able to find jobs to suit their skillset.

Most Cambodian migrant workers come from rural areas marked by poverty and limited opportunities. They may have a home to return to, but many cannot find jobs there, or even farm if they don’t own land.

In response to the influx of workers, Cambodia’s Labour Ministry compiled lists of job opportunities for workers to apply, posting them regularly on social media and sharing with local governments. But labour rights NGO Central found far fewer jobs than returnees, and the available positions often didn’t suit workers’ needs.

This was the case for Vuth and Sovanna: they returned to Cambodia with no land, meaning they couldn’t farm to sustain themselves or sell produce – which also would have required further investment to start. Without land, Thailand had offered them a lifeline: jobs that let them send money back to their parents and children – until last year.

Then there’s a skills mismatch: Vuth and Sovanna, who had worked in construction for a decade, struggled to transition into garment manufacturing, the main job available for returned workers, because it requires specialised precision sewing.

The UN’s International Labour Organisation reported last year that whilst Cambodia had many job openings, most workers come from informal sectors like construction or food vending and would need significant training to qualify for available positions.

They further face a geographic mismatch. Jobs are scarce in the largely rural border provinces where most migrants come from. Returning workers often forfeited their final salary in Thailand because of their hasty departure and had to pay fees to return home, making it difficult to travel to other Cambodian provinces in search of work.

A financial knowledge gap

Many returned migrant workers were unaware of any meaningful relief measures offered by microfinance institutions or banks, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

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by Phoung Vantha

According to the National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2019-2025, Cambodia has a financial literacy rating of 18 percent, ranking 135th out of 144 countries. Borrowers’ lack of financial literacy exposes vulnerable groups to dangerous decisions with disastrous repercussions, often resulting in loan misuse.

A lack of financial education leaves many borrowers vulnerable to predatory lending cycles, where they take new loans just to pay the interest on old ones, the report added.

More than half of migrant households are classified as poor and have low levels of formal schooling, according to poverty estimates by the Cambodian Development Resource Institute.

Vuth and Sovanna said they borrowed money to build their house whilst working, not anticipating the risk they would face if they lost their jobs.

Limited government response

Whilst some workers have found new jobs through the Labour Ministry’s listings, many don’t apply because of the distance from their home provinces and their perceived lack of necessary skills.

The government, through the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MLVT), displayed available jobs in manufacturing and services, but they were often not in provinces where returning migrants come from.

Only 31 percent of all returning migrants surveyed by NGO Central said they received any assistance, which mostly came from the Cambodian government. Cambodia has a general social welfare programme for low-income households, but critics say the system is insufficient, politicised, or improperly distributed – the latter issue called out last year by Senate President Hun Sen.

The story of Vuth and Sovanna mirrors that of hundreds of thousands: leaving, returning, sinking into debt, and preparing to leave again. Sovanna said her husband worked for two months on a construction site near their hometown but was never paid, so they’re planning to leave again.

The research institute CDRI highlighted several possible futures for Cambodia following the mass return of workers. The returnees could further strain the country’s economy, especially if they require more social services or add to Cambodia’s already-high loan default rate. But they also represent a substantial new workforce that could boost manufacturing sectors if provided with temporary debt relief and skills development services.

Khun Tharo, the programme manager for NGO Central, said the government should review microfinance institution policies. One option: provide financial support packages to microfinance institutions that would allow over-indebted workers to suspend repayments for three to four months until they find stable jobs.

To ensure long-term security for returnees, Tharo added, the government must invest in training workers and creating more accessible job opportunities. Even giving skilled workers certificates would make it easier for them to find employment. Without such measures, many workers are likely to return to Thailand in the future, he said.

Phoung Vantha is a Cambodian journalist based in Phnom Penh. He is a freelance reporter who covers human rights, social issues, and environmental topics.