Many workers and their families in Myanmar continue to live in crisis: ILO

By Admin 30 Apr 2023

DMG Newsroom
30 April 2023, Sittwe

The precariousness and injustice facing workers and people in Myanmar is greater than ever, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a statement on the eve of May Day, which falls on May 1.

“On this day of special significance to the world of work, the precariousness and injustice facing workers and people in Myanmar is greater than ever,” the ILO’s statement said.

Many workers and their families continue to live in crisis and the livelihoods of many businesses are under threat, the ILO statement reads.

A female employee of a mobile phone company in Sittwe said that the nation’s workers did not get their labour rights in the past and their labour rights are still being violated today.

“We are at work even on May Day. Labour rights are still being violated. In some private jobs, employees are treated in a negative way. Companies don’t pay an employee the salary he or she deserves based on his or her skills,” she added.

The labour affairs support centre in Arakan State says it only received 43 complaints last year about violations of labour rights in the state. The majority of complaints related to disputes over redundancy pay, salary, working hours or leave entitlement.

Local workers have become unemployed due to the departure of foreign investment companies from Myanmar since the February 2021 military coup.

“After the military coup, many foreign companies that had invested in Myanmar left the Southeast Asian country. The workers who used to work in that company are now facing days without a regular income to make ends meet,” said an unemployed worker in Kyaukphyu.

According to a report from the International Labour Organization in August of last year, Myanmar had more than 1 million fewer jobs than it did before the twin shocks of Covid-19 and the 2021 coup. The job figures nonetheless marked an improvement on the ILO’s last estimate in January 2022, when the labour agency found that Myanmar had lost 1.6 million jobs in 2021.

The employment situation has improved slightly since mid-2022, but remains low compared to the pre-coup period, the ILO said.

Since the coup, the number of people leaving the country to work abroad due to the lack of domestic employment opportunities has risen steadily.