Over 100,000 migrant workers in Thailand legally registered

BANGKOK, July 16 (TNA) - The Ministry of Labour reports that 102,952 migrant workers have been legally registered at 19 one-stop service centres in 13 Thai provinces. Sumet Mahosot, Director-General of the ministry's Department of Employment, told journalists of the official figure on Wednesday, saying that it was recorded until July 15, 2014. Sumet described that 98,816 of the migrant workers were registered at 13 centres in 12 Thai provinces and the highest number of the migrant workers was recorded in Bangkok's neighbouring Samut Sakhon Province, where the official one-stop registration service was first started, with as many as 16,709 migrant workers registering on July 15. Meanwhile, Jirasuk Sugandhajati, Permanent Secretary for Labour, and Sumet visited a one-stop service centre at the Thai-Japanese Bangkok Youth Centre in Din Daeng area, which is among six such centres opened in the capital on July 15 with the legal registration to be continued until August 14. Jirasuk acknowledged that the legal registration of migrant workers in Bangkok has been continued smoothly after some teething problems. According to the senior official, each centre should register 1,000-1,500 workers on July 16, after the registration was limited for 700 workers at each centre in the capital on July 15 for the evaluation of its capacity. The senior official told reporters that he will decide later whether Bangkok needs more one-stop service centres, noting although an overwhelming number of migrant workers sought registration in the capital's Thon Buri side, local service centres were able to handle them. Employers, in the meantime, brought a large number of their migrant workers to legally registered at the Thai-Japanese Bangkok Youth Centre on Wednesday morning. (TNA)