September 21, 2019

More than 33,000 Myanmar citizens found employment overseas this August according to an announcement made by the Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population. The news also says the ministry successfully connected 616 people with government jobs and 28,366 with jobs from the private sector.

The countries Myanmar citizens went to work include Malaysia, Singapore, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Japan, UAE, Jordan and Qatar. Fulfilling the required skills, qualifications and other requirements for securing a job overseas will make achieving it even closer.

The young people of Myanmar these days seem more interested in finding jobs abroad than at home. One of the main reasons is that these jobs pay substantially more and this fact has attracted a lot of people to seek employment overseas.

But this phenomenon is not limited to Myanmar. The global trend of going to live and work in other countries is appealing to people who starve for challenges, opportunities and new experiences. Of course, this benefits both the migrant worker’s country of origin and the host nation. The migrant workers will also be able to send back enough money to raise the living standards of their families.

However, there are also numerous incidents of people who have been swindled of their money by brokers offering them jobs in foreign lands. Some people also try to go abroad through illegal means and face various difficulties. In both cases, some people have had their entire livelihoods uprooted.

The victims of human trafficking who fall prey to the deception of these brokers are usually from remote areas with an unfortunate lack of access to proper information and education.

Those who are sent through the illegal path face abuse and torment from their foreign employers. They may also have their pay docked or withheld and, being illegal migrant workers, are in a peculiar and difficult position to file complaints on these unfair treatments to the authorities.

Sometimes on the news, you will see stories of people working abroad who can’t even entrust anything to their close associates or even family members while they’re gone.

One particular guidebook for migrant workers warns that a friend with a well meaning offer of a better job with a better salary and conditions can also end up deceiving you. This warning only managed to find its way into these pages because similar incidents have really happened. If you can’t even trust your friends on this, then a stranger is simply out of the question.

We’d like to inform people seeking jobs overseas to contact the employment offices and legal overseas employment agencies. Going through the whole thing legally is the only good option to avoid any difficulties while you work overseas.

So please, avoid the brokers knocking on your door with offers of lucrative jobs. They just might backstab you later.

GNLM