Posted on 18 July 2008
The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 569
“Phnom Penh: Civil society organizations and officials of the government have expressed different opinions regarding the right to get jobs in Cambodia in the first three months of 2008.
“An under-secretary of state of the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training, Mr. Um Mean, said that those who say that nowadays there are no jobs for its citizens in Cambodia, they are not blind, but they pretend to be blind and deaf, because now there are markedly more factories, and Cambodia has a broad range of industries, of tourism, and of transportation and communication jobs; those enterprises even lack workers.
“Though trade unions and garment factories’ representatives had agreed to increase the basic salary up to US$50 per month on 19 October 2006, this increase cannot match with the inflation in the markets.
“According to a 2007 report of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association [ADHOC], about 300,000 persons join the labor force every year, but only 16,000 among them are graduated students who are seeking jobs. However, only 10% of these graduates can get adequate jobs.
“The new laborers who join the labor force face difficulties to get jobs in the areas where they live, forcing 250,000 of them to migrate from rural areas to major cities, especially to Phnom Penh; a large number of them cross the borders illegally to neighboring countries to seek jobs. The garment sector in Cambodia absorbs about 300,000 workers, but it cannot employ all migrant workers.
“[The president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association] Mr. Rong Chhun said that most investors coming to invest in Cambodia have their own skilled workers and senior managers; their Cambodian staff can only work, for example, as unskilled construction workers.
The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 569
“Phnom Penh: Civil society organizations and officials of the government have expressed different opinions regarding the right to get jobs in Cambodia in the first three months of 2008.
“An under-secretary of state of the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training, Mr. Um Mean, said that those who say that nowadays there are no jobs for its citizens in Cambodia, they are not blind, but they pretend to be blind and deaf, because now there are markedly more factories, and Cambodia has a broad range of industries, of tourism, and of transportation and communication jobs; those enterprises even lack workers.
“Though trade unions and garment factories’ representatives had agreed to increase the basic salary up to US$50 per month on 19 October 2006, this increase cannot match with the inflation in the markets.
“According to a 2007 report of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association [ADHOC], about 300,000 persons join the labor force every year, but only 16,000 among them are graduated students who are seeking jobs. However, only 10% of these graduates can get adequate jobs.
“The new laborers who join the labor force face difficulties to get jobs in the areas where they live, forcing 250,000 of them to migrate from rural areas to major cities, especially to Phnom Penh; a large number of them cross the borders illegally to neighboring countries to seek jobs. The garment sector in Cambodia absorbs about 300,000 workers, but it cannot employ all migrant workers.
“[The president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association] Mr. Rong Chhun said that most investors coming to invest in Cambodia have their own skilled workers and senior managers; their Cambodian staff can only work, for example, as unskilled construction workers.
Mr. Rong Chhun added that at the present time, the majority of Cambodian citizens has no paid employment, and this strongly affects their livelihood because of inflation, which makes the prices of all kinds of good skyrocket; this forces parents to stop sending their children to school, so that they rather help to seek additional income to cover daily expenses, and among them are many who work as scavengers at garbage dumps, though they are children.
“According to the survey by ADHOC, the shortage of employment for youth seriously affects children working at certain production areas that are not well organized, like rubber plantations, salt field, brick and tile kilns, and in general in Poipet. Most of the children working there are from 10 to 17 years old, and they do all kinds of work that normally adults do, such as rubber tapping, carrying heavy goods on racks on their shoulders, dragging carts, or carrying salt yokes.
“This ADHOC report added that part of this working situation exists because it does not seem to get proper attention, and nobody respects the rights of the working children, for example, in the work at some mines in Mondolkiri. There is no respect of workers’ rights, the workers get hit as punishment; moreover, those companies do not allow human rights organizations to gather information or to observe all kinds of abuse of workers’ rights. Furthermore, some mines broke in and workers were killed. Those companies can do so, because the government does not observe and check whether all contracts between the companies and the government are implemented, and the government is also not caring to monitor the abuses of workers’ rights.
“Mr. Rong Chhun said that at the present in Cambodia, Khmer citizens are facing many difficulties when seeking jobs. He said that if Cambodia had a lot of employment opportunities, Khmer citizens would not migrate to work in other countries; the majority of migration leads to Thailand and to Malaysia, and a smaller number people goes to work in South Korea. Among those who go abroad, some do it legally and some are illegal workers; they are mistreated, oppressed, and threatened, both mentally and physically, by people from those countries who accuse them of coming into their countries illegally; they may be detained, until there are interventions on their behalf to help them return to their home countries.”
Khmer Sthapana, Vol.1, #51, 17.7.2008
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