Migrant workers previously had to return to Burma to renew the documents.

Migrant workers from Burma will be able to extend their work permits from within Thailand for another two years, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Labor announced this week.

The Thai government made the decision on July 8, which means that migrant workers will not have to return to Burma in order to renew their labor documents. According to the Memorandum of Understanding in place between the two countries, this trip back home was a previous requirement.

Representatives from the Human Rights and Development (HRDF) Foundation, which works on migrant rights, told SHAN that there could be One-Stop Service (OSS) centers opened for the extension of work permits, also known as labor cards.

“I still don’t know the cost or the process of the labor card extension,” Sai Pieng, who works with HRDF, told SHAN.

One possibility is that migrant workers will need to obtain queue numbers online before renewing their documents at the OSS centers, he added.

Current work permits have an expiry date of either September 30 or November 1, 2019 or March 31, 2020.

Labor rights activists estimate that there are around 3 million migrant workers from Burma currently employed in Thailand.