What Thailand’s hate posts won’t tell you about migration
Burmese migrant fishermen working on Thai fishing trawlers have their work permits inspected by port authorities at Phuket’s main fishing port. Photo: Luke Duggleby/Redux
- By
- Ken G Weber
- Published
- 5 min read
Thailand needs millions of migrant workers to sustain economic growth, economists say. Yet social media campaigns spreading distorted facts have turned public opinion against Myanmar migrants who do the dirty, dangerous jobs locals avoid.
Than Zin works at a Burmese eatery in Samut Sakhon province that draws a steady stream of Myanmar migrant customers. But these days, business is unpredictable in ways that have nothing to do with the food.
Members of the nationalist group “Thais Won’t Tolerate This” sometimes march through her neighbourhood, searching for undocumented workers. When word spreads they’re coming, her migrant customers stay away.
“Whenever we heard that they were coming to our neighbourhood, our shop would have so much food left unsold,” said Than Zin, asking that her real name not be used. “I’m worried that they’ll come into my shop one day, too.”
Than Zin’s fears aren’t unfounded. Across Thailand, a wave of online hate speech has turned public sentiment against Myanmar migrants, fuelled by false claims about foreign workers overloading healthcare systems, demanding excessive wages, and staging political demonstrations.
HaRDstories tracked this trend by collecting 129 public Facebook posts containing hate speech against Myanmar migrants between August 2024 and February 2025. About a third involved distorted facts designed to stoke anti-migrant sentiment, often invoking Thailand’s ancient rivalry with Myanmar to open old wounds and stoke fear.
Yet beneath the online vitriol lies a different reality. Research suggests migrants don’t displace Thai workers, economic data reveals their vital role in key industries, and investigations show how misleading content has shaped public opinion.
What has migration looked like between Thailand and Myanmar?
Through the porous borders of the two nations, people have gone back and forth before lines were even drawn. After the demarcation of the Thai-Burmese border in the 1800s, people from both sides have lived separately ever since.
But during the 1980s, due to brutal crackdowns at home, tens of thousands of Myanmar migrants and refugees arrived in Thailand, and the first camps were established along the border. Although Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, these sites grew into nine official refugee shelters that today still hold about 90,000 people.
After Thailand’s economic boom in the 1990s, a new wave of labour migrants departed their homes to seek work and opportunities in the Kingdom. Memorandums of Understanding and cabinet resolutions by the Thai government have remained pathways for migrant labourers to enter the country and seek legal employment.
Around four million migrant workers, mostly from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, live in Thailand today, working in sectors like manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries. About a million reside in Bangkok and its suburbs, and production hubs like Samut Sakhon.
Rather than replacing Thai workers, Kiriya Kulkolkarn, professor at Thammasat University, argues migrants are a necessity for the Thai economy.
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Why Thailand needs migrants
The economics professor, who has done extensive research on the economic impact of migrants, calculated that Thailand needs nine million migrant labourers to keep its economy growing – without them would spell devastating consequences to the country’s economic growth.
She predicted in 2010 that if “we don’t allow migrant workers to come at all […], then our GDP would decrease by seven percent.”
Thailand ranks as one of the world’s fasting ageing society. “We’ll see that in an aging society, there will be many elderly people, and the number of young workers will decrease,” said Kiriya. “So we need people to care for the elderly and provide various care services. Migrant workers can help with that.”
If migrant workers disappeared, as they did after the 2014 Thai Coup when Cambodian migrants packed and left, fresh fruits were left unpicked and rotten as no one was there to harvest them. The same applies to other sectors that heavily rely on foreign labour.
“The fishery industry is mostly made up of foreign workers, so it will probably be disabled; it can’t function,” said Kiriya if migrants decided to leave.
Are migrants taking Thai jobs?
Many online posts about migrants claim that foreign workers are “stealing” jobs from Thais. But research consistently finds that legal migrant labourers do not reduce job opportunities for locals. While there are minimal pressures on wages for low-skilled Thai workers, these effects are small and outweighed by productivity gains and better opportunities for high-skilled labourers.
Thailand’s employment laws are designed to protect Thai workers by prohibiting migrants from certain occupations. The law prohibits foreigners from working in designated occupations – including professional services, certain trades and skilled manufacturing – specifically to prevent wage depression and job displacement that could affect Thai workers.
As a result, migrant workers engage in so-called “3D” jobs: dirty, dangerous and difficult roles in agriculture, fishing, construction and food processing that many Thai workers avoid.
Even as immigration surged, Thailand’s jobless rate remained extremely low, with unemployment figures hovering around one percent or lower for the past decade, according to the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC).
What triggered the current migration wave?
After the COVID-19 pandemic, borders began to open up, and workers travelled back or started to work again. But Myanmar’s 2021 coup dramatically changed the demographic.
Younger, educated Myanmar migrants began arriving, driven by military conscription and economic collapse. Despite their skills, most can only find menial jobs available to other migrant workers.
These newer arrivals differ from documented workers with established rights, and from stateless communities who were granted Thai citizenship under an October cabinet resolution – though misinformation has falsely claimed this applies to all migrants.
Recent aid cuts from the Trump administration left refugees in the nine border camps facing even bleaker prospects. But in a significant policy shift, Thailand granted them legal employment rights on 26 August, ending decades of restrictions that had confined them to camp life.
“This is a new chapter for Thailand,” said Chawaratt Chawarangkul, a migrant advocate, on Facebook. “No longer viewing refugees as a burden, but as a driving force for the country’s development.”
How can we address hate-speech and disinformation?
The wave of misinformation on Myanmar migrants has warped public debate. Anonymous accounts spread false claims, social media amplifies them, and some news outlets repeat them without checking.
Social media companies have rules against hate speech, but their systems are slow to act. By the time harmful posts get removed, the damage is often already done. HaRDstories found that even when content gets flagged on one platform, identical posts remain live on others.
The UN strategy for countering hate speech emphasises involving governments, tech companies and citizens in monitoring and education. As individuals, people can fact-check content using tools like Whopostedwhat and Google Images to trace post origins.
Political scientist Sirada Khemanitthathai from Chiang Mai University worries about Thailand’s low media literacy levels. Even educated middle-class Thais have proven susceptible to migration misinformation.
“People who think differently are less willing to voice their opinion because they’re afraid of coming under attack,” she said. “If hate speech continues to rise, migrant workers’ rights issues will be swept under the rug without finding solutions.”
You can read our investigation about hate speech here
This project was supported by Internews
Ken G Weber is a Thai-Austrian journalist who reports on overlooked issues in Thailand. His writings are inspired by local voices seeking to defend their rights and environment.
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